Katie Hopkins has been permanently suspended from Twitter for breaking the platform’s rules on hate speech, the social media giant has disclosed.
The former Apprentice star turned far-right commentator had more than one million followers on the platform.
Hopkins has sparked outrage on numerous occasions in recent years with comments on race, religion and immigration – which had led to her becoming the subject of a petition urging Twitter to remove her from the site.
In a statement tonight, a Twitter spokesman said Hopkins’ account had been shut down for breaking the site’s rules around hateful content.
This comes as the social media site slapped a warning on President Donald Trump’s tweets.
Twitter has toughened its stance against misleading content posted by Mr Trump of late – but has stopped short of suspending his account despite huge criticism of his tweets.
The former Apprentice star turned far-right commentator had more than one million followers on the platform
In a statement, a Twitter spokesman said Hopkins’ account had been shut down, pictured, for breaking the site’s rules around hateful content
People applauded the decision to remove Hopkins from the platform, though questioned why Trump was still tweeting.
Twitter said in a statement tonight: ‘Keeping Twitter safe is a top priority for us – abuse and hateful conduct have no place on our service and we will continue to take action when our Rules are broken.
‘In this case, the account has been permanently suspended for violations of our Hateful Conduct policy.’
According to Twitter’s website, that policy prohibits promoting violence against or directly attacking or threatening people based on race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religion, age, disability or serious disease.
Today, Twitter added a warning label onto a video tweet shared by Donald Trump’s account, informing users it contained manipulated media.
The clip is edited to look like it appeared on a CNN broadcast, showing a black toddler running away from a white child, with a fake CNN breaking news caption reading: ‘Terrified todler (sic) runs from racist baby.’
It then claims to reveal ‘what actually happened’, showing the original version of events where the pair are playing – the way CNN had reported it – before accusing ‘fake news’ of being the root cause of problems in America.
Underneath the US president’s tweet, the social network added a ‘manipulated media’ label.
Clicking on the warning, users are told: ‘In September 2019, CNN reported on a viral video about a friendship between two toddlers.
‘On Thursday, the president shared a version of the video which many journalists confirmed was edited and doctored with a fake CNN chyron.’
Some questioned why President Trump’s account was still active while Hopkins’ had been removed
The social media site slapped a warning on President Donald Trump’s tweets, but made the decision not to remove his account
Hopkins, who is a former MailOnline columnist, has been heavily criticised in the past for her comments.
These include comparing migrants to cockroaches and claiming the photograph of a dead Syrian boy lying on a beach that sparked a wave of compassion across Europe was staged, as well as stating that dementia sufferers should not block hospital beds.
She has also recently criticised the Black Lives Matter movement as well as the Government’s decision to offer free meals to children during school holidays – a campaign driven by Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford.
In May, the firm placed fact-checking labels on two tweets from the president’s personal account which made claims about fraud in US postal voting, as well as hiding a post about protests in the city of Minneapolis after Mr Floyd’s death.
Mr Trump responded by signing an executive order to restrict legal protections allowing social media sites to remove content they deem inappropriate, a power he described as being akin to censorship.
CNN’s communications team replied to the president’s latest tweet, saying: ‘CNN did cover this story – exactly as it happened.
‘Just as we reported your positions on race (and poll numbers).
‘We’ll continue working with facts rather than tweeting fake videos that exploit innocent children. We invite you to do the same. Be better.’
On Friday evening, Facebook also took down the video but only following a copyright complaint.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has come under fire by some staff for the network’s stance on the president’s social presence.
However, the tech giant did remove campaign adverts by Mr Trump and vice president Mike Pence that featured an upside-down red triangle – a Nazi symbol used to designate political prisoners in concentration camps.