This is the image from the cover of 'Alt-America' that is the cause of my Twitter suspension.

Well, my suspension from Twitter for featuring art from the cover of my book about the radical Right in my profile photo has now reached its eighth day, and there’s still no end in sight.

I have been corresponding with a spokesperson at the company, though those discussions have had long periods of radio silence from their end. Most recently, I was assured that they would attempt to set up conversations between key staff members and me, but that’s been followed by continuing silence. So we’ll see what happens.

I really am refusing to back down on this as a matter of principle. We have already had too many other researchers of the far Right victimized by Twitter’s insanely obtuse algorithm, which clearly is unable to distinguish hateful content from the journalism that exposes hateful activity, including the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Michael Edison Hayden. It’s outrageous that the people most at risk from Twitter’s new initiative cracking down on radical right-wing content are the journalists working to expose the groups that promulgate the hate that Twitter wants deleted.

It’s not just Twitter, though. Far Right researcher/author Shane Burley, with whom I have worked covering the riots in Portland of the past two years, has been suspended by Facebook for very similar reasons. “This month it was for posting a meme that said ‘The Original Straight Pride Parade’ with a photo from a 1920s Klan rally,” he told me. “I only had my account back for two weeks after it had another 30-day suspension, that time for posting a photo of David Duke's Klan Border Watch with a message about how we should remember the past. It was right about the time of the border militia controversy.”

What really is interesting about the situation, though, is the stark contrast between my case and what’s been happening when leading far-right figures have been suspended for actually promulgating hate.