IT'S a debate that is tearing apart the internet, with Silicon Valley battling free speech advocates over the tricky issue of whether to silence people's whose opinions are deemed to be "offensive".

Now one 22-year-old tech guru has found himself at the centre of this vitriolic "culture war" after claims he was secretly working to silence Trump supporters and right-leaning Twitter accounts went viral.

4 William LeGate, the tech entrepreneur at the centre of a viral firestorm

LeGate, 22, was welcomed into the bosom of Silicon Valley at the tender age of 18, when he was awarded the Thiel Fellowship and handed $100,000 by Paypal founder Peter Thiel.

He then dropped out of school to pursue a career as a tech entrepreneur, working on a range of projects and pursuing an entreprenurial career.

But it's been claimed he is involved in Silicon Valley's attempt to stamp out right wing politics online by blocking, banning or gagging prominent journalists and activists.

Some people believe LeGate is secretly working with Twitter and has access to the social network's systems, which he is alleged to use to discover the personal details of his opponents and unmask the people who anonymously run right wing accounts.

LeGate is infamous online as an "anti-Trump troll" whose comments beneath The Donald's posts almost magically seem to appear above every other comment, prompting claims he can somehow "game the system" and promote his tweets above other people's, giving them a larger audience (see the tweet below).

Digital censorship is a hot button issue right now amid claims that companies like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Google are trying to impose a left wing agenda on the internet and bring an end to unfettered free speech online.

This 'William LeGate' responds within seconds & gets pushed to the top of the thread bashing Trump on almost EVERY tweet. Twitter is rigged. pic.twitter.com/yfSybQkd6z — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) March 28, 2017

It's been alleged that LeGate has published tweets threatening to report accounts to "his friends" at Twitter, further stoking claims that he is aligned with a shadowy group trying to wipe out free speech online."

He also appears to possess an impressive ability to block accounts en masse using a computer program he created, a tactic he claims is necessary due to the number of threats he receives from people who disagree with him politically.

His political rivals, however, allege that this is nothing more than an attempt to silence dissent.

"Is William LeGate being assisted by Silicon Valley to stalk people?" one website asked in an article which went viral over the weekend.

One of the most recent incidents which went viral relates to an account called @peplamb.

Its operator claimed to have received an email threatening to leak his name, address and details of his employer.

"I'm releasing everything and will be contacting my friends at Twitter with proof of you violating their terms of service," it said.

So what's going on?

We spoke to LeGate to get his side of the story.

He claimed to be at the centre of a vast conspiracy fuelled by false allegations and fake stories about his links with Twitter, as well as doctored tweets.

The programmer claimed to have received threats of violence.

He claimed: "I've received not dozens but literally thousands of death threats from these people.

"The allegations that I somehow have access to Twitter's systems or private user data is absurd and completely unfounded."

LeGate said that Twitter has the right as a private company to censor any posts or accounts sharing prejudiced or hateful content such as racism or homophobia.

However, the definition of what is hateful and what is acceptable is often very much in the eye of the beholder, with free speech advocates claiming left-wingers are far too sensitive about what sort of content should be banned and lefties calling for ever more censorship.

LeGate said he used his technical background to analyze which types of content perform best, as opposed to being part of some sort of conspiracy with Twitter.

The programmer does admit to having friends at Twitter, but indicated he did not work with them to get people's accounts shut down and instead relied on simply reporting people who posted content he felt was against Twitter's rules, leaving the social network to choose who to ban.

He added: "People are after me because of the 'reach' I have on Twitter.

"I have no interest in 'shutting down' right wing account or exposing private info like people's addresses.

"All of this controversy stems from my discovery that one of Trump's biggest fans on Twitter, who claimed to be an American, was actually a Twitter bot being run from India.

"People immediately assumed I must have had access to internal Twitter data to make this discovery."

4 Twitter has previously been accused of making some tweets less visible to users than others, an alleged practice that's been dubbed 'shadowbanning' Credit: Reuters

We also spoke to a Twitter source who denied that there was any campaign to silence right wing voices.

They also insisted that LeGate did not have access to Twitter's internal systems.

The social network claims it only shutters accounts when they break its rules and allows all its users to report people whose behaviour they find unacceptable.

4 Jamie Bartlett, who is one of Britain's most prominent tech experts

In the age of social networking, it's often very hard to know who to believe.

Jamie Bartlett, a writer and broadcaster who is director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at the think tank Demos, told The Sun Online that's is extremely difficult to work out the difference between truth and lies in the online world.

His widely praised BBC series, The Secrets of Silicon Valley, told the story of a former Facebook executive who believes society will COLLAPSE within 30 years as robots put half of all humans out of work.

"It can be extremely difficult to separate truth from fiction on social media," Jamie said.

"Falsehoods, disinformation or lies can be dressed up to look almost indistinguishable from reliable, trustworthy information.

"And the falsehood peddlers have a suite of tools open to them: video or image manipulation, professional looking sites, or carefully crafted accounts."

4 Milo Yiannopoulos, a conservative who has was banned from Twitter Credit: EPA

Sometimes, however, the wild rumours actually turn out be true.

There appears to be little doubt about whether Silicon Valley is working to silence right wingers or conservatives.

Concerns about Silicon Valley's alleged censorship campaign have become so acute that a left-leaning journalist at The Guardian recently questioned whether her fellow liberals needed to "fight to defend" free speech after a far right website was knocked offline.

"If the left does abandon its free speech principles, it may come to regret it," Julia Carrie Wong warned.

Google recently came under heavy criticism when it sacked programmer James Damore after he published a 3,000-word memo blaming “biological causes” for women’s lack of achievement in the technology industry.

Facebook has also been accused of developing a tool which will censor and suppress people's posts - and admitted to developing an interface which can read people's minds.

Last year, Twitter itself was slammed for giving British right wing firebrand Milo Yiannopolis a life ban after he published jokes about one of the stars of the female-led Ghostbusters film.

Right wingers fear freedom of speech set to become as old-fashioned as a dial-up connection.

Do you believe them?