In the latest case of Big Tech interfering with elections, Twitter recently banned at least two candidates running for office.
Tommy Robinson (legal name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) is both the former leader of the English Defence League and an alumni of conservative Canadian news outlet Rebel media. BBC reported Robinson will run for European Parliament. Carl Benjamin, better known as SargonOfAkkad, is also running for Member of Parliament with the Brexit supporting UK Independence Party, UKIP.
According to Indy100, “It is not clear whether Robinson or his team were responsible for running the account, or why the account was blocked.” Benjamin was banned from Twitter in late April 2019, despite Twitter’s previous policy of allowing political candidates a platform.
Free speech YouTuber Tim Pool reacted to the deplatforming saying, “Twitter is now directly interfering in political elections by banning only some candidates access to the platform.”
A staffer who worked for the campaign, Michael De La Broc, Tweeted, “We are investigating why, but strongly suspect this is a deliberate act of political censorship to deny a candidate his voice in a crucial election.”
Twitter banned the campaign account in late April, claiming it was suspended “for breach of our Terms of Service." That account was not operated by Benjamin himself and the account’s bio even indicated: "Account not operated by Carl Benjamin.”
De La Broc tweeted: “Carl Benjamin's official campaign account has been deleted by twitter. Carl never used the account.” He also said the campaign would be taking their case to the “relevant electoral authorities” and “seek restitution.”
UKIP Tweeted from its official account on his behalf, "Official UKIP MEP Campaign account @CarlUkip, of which Carl Benjamin has no access to has been suspended from Twitter
"This is election interference, and UKIP will get to the bottom of this."
Benjamin gained fame on YouTube as SargonofAkkad where he discusses many controversial subjects. Both Twitter and Patreon have deplatformed him in the past. Patreon once changed its own rules to justify banning him from its payment processing platform.
In response to recent allegations, Benjamin spoke at UKIP's campaign launch conference on April 18, calling the media “smear merchants” and proclaiming “I don’t care what you say.” He added, “I’ve been doing this for five years, I have nearly a million subscribers, just go have a look.”
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A video defense of his past statements providing full context to things he has been accused of saying regarding race, identity politics, sexual age of consent and more has been posted on YouTube.
Robinson is a prominent pro-Brexit commentator and activist in England. He was famously imprisoned in 2018 for reporting outside of a courthouse where men from a local Pakistani grooming gang were on trial for exploiting local English girls. Twitter banned him for what it claimed was anti-Muslim sentiment in March of 2018, but as of April 26 his campaign account has been banned as well.
As reported by The Hill, “YouTube recently placed restrictions on Robinson's account after the far-right figure was banned from Facebook and Instagram for violating their anti-hate speech policies.”
Facebook also deplatformed Robinson in February 2019 for “dehumanizing language” after meeting with Muslim lobbyists. Breaking with tradition, Facebook announced the ban via their newsblog without citing pictures or quotes showing what speech they chose to ban him for.
Robinson responded saying, “the reasons they’ve given are just complete lies. They’re saying I incited violence and that I openly called for violence against Muslims, that’s just a lie. If that was the case then they could show evidence of messages where I’d said that but I never have.”
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Note: This story was corrected on May 1 to clarify the nature of the political event and who ran the campaign Twitter account
