Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, was inexplicably suspended from Twitter on Friday.
@BFFsPod, the Twitter account for the weekly podcast hosted by Portnoy and TikTok star, Josh Richards, tweeted screenshot of Portnoy's account with the message "Account suspended."
The account tweeted out the screenshot along with the newly trending hashtag, #FREEPORTNOY. The podcast added that “you’ll want to tune into next week’s episode.”
Although Twitter appeared to provide no reason as to why Portnoy was suspended, The Daily Wire reported that some users speculated that he was targeted after he threatened to “drop my nuts on your head” during a debate on Penn National Gaming stock.
However, the platform’s terms of service allow it to suspend accounts for little to no reason.
“Twitter’s purpose is to serve the public conversation. Violence, harassment and other similar types of behavior discourage people from expressing themselves, and ultimately diminish the value of global public conversation. Our rules are to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely,” the “Twitter Rules” state.
Portnoy talked with Ben Shapiro of The Daily Wire about why he is willing to engage with critics on social media.
“There is an audience that appreciates, and it’s not even Left or Right, it’s kind of both, like, ‘I like how these guys aren’t backing down.’ And our audience allows us to do that, so people have always asked, ‘Why do you fight back’ or ‘Why do you push back’ or ‘Why don’t you just shut up when someone takes a shot at you that you feel is unfair.’ It’s like, I’m not going to do that. I will never throw the first punch, but if you throw a shot at me on Twitter — out of the clouds — it’s not my responsibility to protect you,” Portnoy said.
UPDATE: Portnoy’s account has since been reinstated.
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