Twitter users have reacted to Breitbart London editor in chief Raheem Kassam receiving a seven-day ban from the platform after he received a stream of abuse online from hard-left activists.

The ban came shortly after Kassam was revealed to be on a ‘hitlist’ of right-wing Twitter users targeted by a left-wing group, forcing the website to shut down their accounts through concentrated mass-reporting.

https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/956373058129862656

Breitbart’s Kassam Suspended from Twitter After Firing Back Against Leftist Attacks https://t.co/tD2KJGQOkN — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 25, 2018

Opening the Breitbart News Daily show Thursday, just hours after the beginning of his ban, Kassam said while he was grateful for the free publicity and relished the prospect of not having to spend the rest of January being “dragged into the gutter with screaming leftists every day”, there were concerns over the neutrality of Twitter — especially in the wake of revelations by James O’Keefe and Project Veritas that the platform was shadowbanning conservative users.

Big brother put @RaheemKassam in the Twitter no go zone.#FreeRaheem — Stefan Molyneux (@StefanMolyneux) January 25, 2018

Kassam said: “The powers that be in this world in which we live… the powers that decide who may have speech and who may not, who may say what and what they may not say, have in their great judgement decided that I cannot have a Twitter account… I was suspended late last night, and for what?

“One Tweet, I said you can sue me for harassment if you want but my lawyers will counter-sue and take your money in fees, that was all I said. Apparently, I’m not allowed to defend myself if there are dozens of left-wing accounts including bots and anonymous accounts tweeting abuse, hatred, swear words… you name it.

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/956384390124396544

“It has all happened over the last week since that Sky News interview went viral — ever since that I’m not allowed to defend myself.

“So I’ve been put in the Twitter Gulag. This comes just a couple of days after James O’Keefe and Project Veritas revealed hidden camera footage form discussions they had had with Twitter engineers saying they do indeed shadowban conservatives, they store up people’s direct messages, the Twitter stock price falling on the back of that.

https://twitter.com/ali/status/956412525662400512

“I actually tweeted about that in a fit of prescience five days ago ‘I think Twitter is about to ban me’… and guess what happened. Banned. This is the brave new world in which we live.”

Fans of the Breitbart London editor in chief have since taken to the platform, calling for the account to be reinstated.