The company won't explain the removal of Milo Yiannopoulos's verification badge. A campaign against harassment, and allegations of speech policing.

Twitter's removal of journalist and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos's verification badge for unspecified rules violations has pushed the company — in the midst of a crackdown on harassment — deeper into the politicized battle over online speech. Though Yiannopoulos is still on the platform, the self-described supervillain is widely impersonated and the loss of the verification badge could well make it difficult for him to distribute his message on Twitter. "The primary purpose of verification is to combat impersonation," Yiannopoulos told BuzzFeed News in an email. "I can't think of anyone on the internet more impersonated (whether out of affection or otherwise) than me."

Damn shame Support un-verified @nero because now there's no way I can tell who's the real one. #jesuismilo



One possible Yiannopoulos violation: a top Twitter executive suggested it was for a Tweet containing the phrase: "You deserve to be harassed."

You deserve to be harassed you social justice loser https://t.co/iUmMwMVVAT



The executive, Head of Commerce Nathan Hubbard, said he wasn't speaking for the company. And Twitter, citing a policy of not commenting on individual accounts, declined to comment. But it confirmed that a letter notifying Yiannopoulos of the verification revocation (cited in the tweet below) is real.

I've been sat on the naughty table!

This isn't Twitter's first battle with a member of the populist right-wing media. It banned the journalist Chuck Johnson last May for rules violations. "They're using a tool for establishing the identity of prominent people as an ideological weapon," Yiannopoulos wrote in an email. "Any one of you could be next -- you know how the Left loves to turn on its allies!" It is unclear which rule (or rules) Yiannopoulos violated, and Twitter will not provide any additional detail on which infractions led to his verification removal. Social platforms are corporations, and aren't bound by the First Amendment. But their decisions matter since much of the political discussion that once took place in the open web is now occurring within their walls. And discussions that do take place outside social platforms still often rely on social for distribution. Limiting someone's ability to message on Twitter therefore has real impact. Johnson, for instance, has essentially vanished from the political conversation since he was banned. Facebook has dealt with similar issues. Donald Trump, for instance, recently made statements that appear to be in violation of the company's hate speech policies, yet Trump remains active on the platform.

"When we review reports of content that may violate our policies, we take context into consideration," a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News at the time. "That context can include the value of political discourse." The lack of specificity from Twitter prompted a wave of criticism under the hashtag #jesuismilo (a reference to French journalists who lost more than a blue check mark) and a pointed Tweetstorm from investor Jason Calacanis.





2/if you all want to attack each other all day long on social media, you can't go ask @twitter to decide who is harassing who--not their job

3/Twitter policing speech is the beginning of the end of the platform; 'word policing' will result in exponential trolling// cat & mouse

Hubbard, the Twitter commerce executive, suggested this exchange might have prompted the company's move:

We see this guy tweet like this, encouraging harassment, every. single. day. And where are you @twitter @Support??!