Richard B Spencer’s account reinstated weeks after being suspended as part of wider crackdown on hateful conduct from ‘alt-right’ members

Twitter has reinstated the account of Richard B Spencer, a self-styled white nationalist leader who was suspended from the service in the wake of a much publicised crackdown on hateful conduct.

Spencer’s account was initially suspended on 15 November, as part of a sweeping move against leaders of the “alt-right”, a far-right movement which has been resurgent in America since the election of Donald Trump.

That same day, Twitter had announced new safety tools on its social network, including the ability to more easily report hateful conduct. It had also announced changes in how it trained its moderators to enforce the policies.

The suspension of Spencer, along with the accounts of the white-nationalist National Policy Institute which he heads up and its journal, Radix, was widely seen as a consequence of Twitter putting those new rules in action.

Now, however, it appears that Twitter suspended Spencer for other reasons. Twitter sent the Guardian a copy of the email the company sent to the white nationalist activist, which suggests that Spencer was banned instead for running multiple accounts with too much overlap.

A Twitter spokesperson said: “Our rules explicitly prohibit creating multiple accounts with overlapping uses. When we temporarily suspend multiple accounts for this violation, the account owner can designate one account for reinstatement.”

The email Twitter sent Spencer reads:

As referenced in our November 18, 2016 communication, creating serial and/or multiple accounts with overlapping use is a violation of the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). Please select one account for restoration; the others will remain suspended. This account will need to comply fully with the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). Please reply to this email with the username of the account you would like reinstated and we will make sure to answer your request in a timely manner.

In the weeks following his suspension, Spencer hosted a conference in Washington DC, where audience members gave enthusiastic Nazi salutes (Spencer later said they had been “done in exuberance and fun”).



But on 11 December, his Twitter account was reactivated, and its verified status was reinstated. Verification is a special account status the social network gives to notable users to confirm they are who they say they are, but Twitter emphasises that “a verified badge does not imply an endorsement by Twitter”.

As one of his first tweets after being reinstated, Spencer said: “I worked on getting my personal reinstated first. Next will be Radix, NPI, _AltRight_ and WSP.” But the Guardian understands that those accounts, as some of the “multiple, overlapping accounts” for which Spencer was suspended, are unlikely to be reinstated.

When it banned Spencer for the first time, the company declined to comment directly on the suspended accounts, but said “the Twitter Rules prohibit violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct and multiple account abuse, and we will take action on accounts violating those policies.”