Twitter has censored British conservative commentator Katie Hopkins for reportedly mocking a threat of violence by one of her detractors. Twitter, being Twitter, decided she was the dangerous one.
Hopkins “received a permanent ban from Twitter for a tweet she made in response to a threat against her,” Sky News reported. A Twitter spokesperson allegedly claimed that Hopkins’s suspension was intended “to keep Twitter safe.” In another statement from Twitter, according to The Guardian, Hopkins’s “account has been permanently suspended for violations of our hateful conduct policy.”
Twitter’s Hateful Conduct Policy states that users “may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.” If remains unclear exactly what protected human group Hopkins could have been insulting by referring to the genitalia of primates.
Hopkins explained to Sky News that she “used the phrase hung like a baboon in response to a threat of a sexual nature of violence against me.” Twitter reportedly told her that she, by mocking a threat made against her, had committed “violations of our hateful conduct policy.”
On her Instagram account Hopkins also made note that “hung like a baboon” was a reference to the history-themed sitcom “Blackadder” starring Rowan Atkinson and Brian Blessed. Hopkins mused in the video how Twitter had overlooked the fact that she even used that same phrase “hung like a baboon” in her Twitter bio to describe herself.
“Twitter are [sic] treating people differently based upon their political opinions,” she observed.
Shortly before being censored, Hopkins had, according to Forbes, “over 1 million followers on Twitter and was frequently retweeted by President Donald Trump.”
While Twitter appears to be resolute in its decision to purge Hopkins, she has chosen to instead embrace an entirely new platform.
She closed her Instagram video by encouraging her followers to follow her on Parler instead under the name “@KTHopkins,” identical to the handle on her former Twitter account.
