Twitter has begun to remove tweets which it deems offensive in a move to further punish abusive behaviour on the site.

The social network recently began limiting accounts after the use of language that Twitter feels is objectionable.

But in a further crackdown, individual tweets are now being removed from public visibility - without informing the people who posted them.

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Twitter is removing tweets it deems offensive without informing users Twitter user John Sweeney @SuperNerdCow was the first to alert others to the removal of his tweet, which he believes was hidden from public view for offensive content

WHAT DOES TWITTER ALLOW? Twitter says it 'prohibits the promotion of hate content, sensitive topics, and violence globally.' But this policy does not apply to news and information that calls attention to hate, sensitive topics, or violence, but does not advocate for it. And it also doesn't apply to commentary about products, services, companies, or brands. The site has been criticised for failing to tackle some high-profile cases. For instance, it has allowed Donald Trump to use it as a platform for what many believe is hate speech. The filter also doesn't appear to be hugely effective yet. MailOnline investigated some of the words not blocked by Twitter found in recent tweets and account names and bios. Racial slurs, homophobic language, 'ablest' slurs, and sexist language have all slipped through Twitter's new censorship feature. Advertisement

Twitter user John Sweeney @SuperNerdCow was the first to alert others to the removal of his tweet, which he believes was hidden from public view for offensive content.

Mr Sweeney shared a satirical meme responding to criticism of the appearance of controversial 'alt-right' Breitbart journalist Milo Yiannopoulos on comedian Bill Maher's US political talk show.

Although the tweet itself was not directed at an individual user and did not contain any offensive language, the attached meme did contain the phrase 'autistic screeching'.

The 'autistic screeching' meme is used on image bulletin board 4chan and elsewhere as shorthand for an overreaction to a given situation.

Tweets that have been ghost deleted still appear on the feed of the people who sent them.

But other user's of the site cannot see the message and any links to the Tweet will forward to a page that says the tweet has been deleted.

This means that users whose tweets have been deleted have no way of knowing their post has been removed from public view, according to reports in Heatstreet

As the offensive material In Mr Sweeney's tweet was contained in an image, rather than the text of the tweet, this would suggest that the image was manually viewed and the tweet containing it removed, rather than automatically detected through the use of filters.

Twitter had been under fire after nearly a decade of failure to address hate and abuse on the site

MILO YIANNOPOULOS'S TWITTER BAN In July 2016, Twitter banned conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor of the right-wing site Breitbart News. The company accused Yiannopoulos of 'participating in or inciting targeted abuse of individuals.' The move came a day after Yiannopoulos had incited his 300,000 followers to barrage Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones with racist and demeaning tweets. Advertisement

In a video released by Mr Sweeney, a British video games writer and editor for SuperNerdLand, he attributes the deletion to the inclusion of the hashtag #nottheenemy.

The hashtag was created in response to President Trump's perceived hostility to the media, to suggest that journalists are not the enemy.

Mr Sweeney inverted the premise to suggest that the media were overreacting to Mr Yiannopoulos' appearance on the Maher show.

And he believes that Twitter deleted the tweet for editorial or political reasons, rather than due to any offensive content.

MailOnline has contacted Twitter for a comment.

Speaking in the video, he said: 'Twitter has essentially ghost deleted my tweet without telling me. It still shows up to me.

'It's ridiculous, I've not [directed it at] anyone.

'It's a meme, a relatively popular one, until Twitter decided that shouldn't exist. It's a tweet we don't like, it's expressing an opinion we don't like and "bam", it's gone.'

Video posted by Twitter user John Sweeney @SuperNerdCow. WARNING: Contains strong language.

Last week, Twitter launched a new way of censoring offensive behaviour by temporarily restricting abusive users' accounts.

Some users have been notified that their account is limited for 12 hours.

When an account has been censored, only people who follow them can see their tweets or receive notifications.

When limited accounts are retweeted, people outside of that account's network are blocked from seeing the retweets.

Twitter previously launched a new way of censoring offensive behaviour by temporarily restricting abusive users' accounts for 12 hours

Twitter is honing in on accounts for 'abusive behaviour', such as harassing an account that doesn't follow them back, or spamming popular hashtags with external links.

Users have theorised that the temporary blocks are also based on abusive keywords, but this has not been confirmed by Twitter.

Twitter says it 'prohibits the promotion of hate content, sensitive topics, and violence globally.'

But this policy does not apply to news and information that calls attention to hate, sensitive topics, or violence, but does not advocate for it.

And it also doesn't apply to commentary about products, services, companies, or brands.

Twitter launched a new way of censoring politically incorrect language on its site by temporarily restricting abusive users' accounts. Some users have been notified that their account is limited for 12 hours after using language that Twitter deems abusive

The feature was brought in by Twitter to limit harassment on its site.

Twitter had been under fire after nearly a decade of failure to address hate and abuse on the site.

But a search showed that some abusive language was still slipping through.

MailOnline investigated some of the abusive words not blocked by Twitter found in recent tweets and account names and bios.

Racial slurs, homophobic language, 'ablest' slurs, and sexist language have all slipped through Twitter's new censorship feature. These included p**fter, m**g, p**y, p**sy and f**got.