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Over the past week, the latest round (we’ve lost count of how many rounds) of social media account purges of conservative and nationalist users occurred by the major publishers.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube should now be referred to as social media publishers not platforms as the amount of selective editorializing of their content and who they choose to give a platform to leaves no doubt they are behaving as publishers.

Katie Hopkins Banned from Twitter

On Friday British conservative commentator Katie Hopkins was permanently suspended from Twitter for violating their “hateful conduct policy”. Hopkins had over 1 million Twitter followers and had been retweeted and mentioned by President Trump. She had previously been suspended in January.

Hopkins final tweet that resulted in her permanent ban was a reply Welsh rugby player Ashton Hewitt who tweeted “Katie Hopkins is fucking toxic” because she’s a critic of the Black Lives Matter protests. Hopkins reply was “Am I? He better be hung like a baboon…#katiehopkins.”

A major social media publisher Hopkins is not banned from is Instagram where she was able to issue a right a reply to her Twitter ban and that her “hung like a baboon” comment was the classic British period comedy “Blackadder” starring Rowan Atkinson in the 1980s. 


As well as her Instagram profile Katie Hopkins Official YouTube Channel still exists featuring her previous vlogs and mainstream media appearances. Katie Hopkins this week has joined free speech social media platform Parler with her opening of an account triggering a mass migration in users and traffic to the site.

The British mainstream media had already made the decision to collectively deplatform Hopkins after years as of television and radio appearances and newspaper columns. She has of course retained her loyal following for her plain speaking on current cultural issues and witty pop-cultural commentary.

Hopkins has still been welcome on Australian media outlets becoming a regular on Sky News’ Outsiders program and Channel Nine’s Today show with Karl Stefanovic.

Gavin McInnes’ YouTube Ban

One of the world’s most censored personalities already was Gavin McInnes. He was banned from touring Australia at the end of 2018 and had already been banned from Facebook and Twitter but still had a YouTube channel. His YouTube channel was temporarily suspended in early 2019 for copyright infringement but has now been permanently suspended according to YouTube “due to repeated or server violations of our community guidelines”.

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McInnes had amassed 350k YouTube subscribers over 15 years. YouTube has indicated they will also go after accounts that feature him in any positive light.

McInnes’ YouTube ban coincided last week with yet another Facebook purge of accounts associated with the western male fraternity the Proud Boys than McInnes founded in 2016 but which he is not currently a member of. Facebook bans any links to Proud Boy or Gavin McInnes associated websites

McInnes now communicates with his followers via his channel on the telegram.org app and continues to operate his own self-hosted video subscription platform censored.tv which hosts other deplatformed personalities such as Milo Yiannopoulos. Laura Loomer and Soph.

These latest bans will not have the effect of erasing Katie Hopkins or Gavin McInnes from the internet nor deny them a platform. The use of free speech social media platforms (in the true definition of the term platform) Gab, BitChute, and Palour continue and their number of accounts and web traffic continues to grow and as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube continue to indicate they are conservative and nationalist non-friendly publishers.

Author Details
Tim Wilms is the Founder and Editor in Chief of https://theunshackled.net. the Host of Tim’s News Explosion, the WilmsFront interview program and The Theorists with Andy Nolch. He based in Melbourne, Australia where he also conducts field reports.
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Tim Wilms is the Founder and Editor in Chief of https://theunshackled.net. the Host of Tim’s News Explosion, the WilmsFront interview program and The Theorists with Andy Nolch. He based in Melbourne, Australia where he also conducts field reports.