Silicon Valley has claimed yet another conservative scalp after Twitter banned Gavin McInnes – the outspoken founder of the “Proud Boys” and co-founder of VICE magazine, along with several related accounts.
The timing of Mcinnes’s account suspension is suspect, has he was banned shortly after declaring that his organization is in no way associated with the “Unite the Right II” white supremacist rally taking place in Washington D.C. this weekend. The Proud Boys are a “pro-Western fraternal organization” which have made recent headlines following physical confrontations with leftists, particularly Antifa.
“It goes without saying #ProudBoys have NOTHING to do with this and won’t go near it. We are a multi-racial group that eschews the Alt-Right and despise DNC operatives such as #OccupyWallStreet’s Jason Kessler.”
Gavin was suspended after tweeting this pic.twitter.com/go3Ri7pYp6
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 11, 2018
In 2017, as noted by journalist and pundit Ali Alexander, the Proud Boys disavowed the original Unite the Right rally:
In a rare decision, Gavin McInnes has officially announced that the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, scheduled on August 12th, has been disavowed. I personally am not surprised by this. The rally is not about “uniting the right,” it is an attempt to lump civic-nationalists in with ethno-nationalists in order to make them seem like the same thing.
FUCK.
THAT.
Of course, this didn’t stop publications from linking the Proud Boys ban to support of Unite the Right II after McInnes was banned.
Variety ran with the headline, “Twitter Shuts Down Accounts of Vice Co-Founder Gavin McInnes, Proud Boys Ahead of ‘Unite the Right’ Rally” and leftwing The Hill screamed, “Twitter suspends far-right “Proud Boys” accounts ahead of “Unite the Right” rally” atop of its coverage. Mashable tried linking the group with the rally exclaiming, “Twitter suspends Proud Boys before white supremacist rally.” –Ali Alexander
There’s a coordinated effort to frame the #ProudBoys. I’ve been quiet and observing it. Screenshot this.
— Ali Alexander (@ali) August 6, 2018
What’s more, Twitter has reportedly been blocking links to the Proud Boys website:
Twitter will not allow me to even link the Proud Boys website.
This is insane and blocks journalism, @TwitterSafety. Scary. @delbius @jack pic.twitter.com/GR2VRfH1QD
— Ali Alexander (@ali) August 11, 2018
same here @ali pic.twitter.com/br7G4yYLGB
— Jason Belich 🇺🇸 (@JasonBelich) August 11, 2018
In reaction to his ban, McInnes told Big League Politics “They think this is going to stop Trump,” adding “Maybe if they deplatform us, the socialists will win – but they won’t. We’ve already won. You can’t stump the Trump.”
“The left is trying to make this about Unite the Right. It’s a lie,” said McInnes. “Antifa and the socialists are the mainstream now and we’re the Rebels.”
Yesterday we noted that a flood of conservatives over various platforms vehemently denounced the event organized by Kessler – who was a leftist “Occupy” activist less than two years ago before shifting into his white supremacist schtick.
McInnes’s ban comes on the heels of an appearance by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Sean Hannity’s radio show last week, in which he assured the conservative host that he hoped to address terms of service violations “with warnings, with notices, with a temporary lock of the account” as opposed to summarily banning people.
Twitter’s decision came just days after InfoWars host Alex Jones was kicked off multiple social media platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Pinterest. It also comes little more than a week after Twitter was castigated by President Trump himself for suppressing the accounts of top Republicans in the platform’s search results.
Just yesterday, the New York Times ridiculed fears of mass censorship of conservatives on social media, calling the concerns “overblown.” -Breitbart
Meanwhile, uber-popular politically agnostic podcast h3h3 had its YouTube live broadcast banned mid-stream after the show’s hosts began simply discussing the censorship of Alex Jones.
Wow @TeamYouTube just shut down our @theh3podcast live stream and gave us a strike for talking about Alex Jones??… What.
— Ethan Klein (@h3h3productions) August 10, 2018
As Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari notes, McInnes and the Proud Boys were banned “a little over an hour later.”
We’re guessing not even a well-coached Jack Dorsey doing softball damage-control interviews can explain this.
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