André Ventura, the leader of right-wing political party Chega, has been definitively banned from social network Twitter after three suspensions in less than a year.
He has denounced the situation as “the ground zero of democracy” and claims he will be “advancing to the courts”.
Twitter meantime has justified its actions on the basis that it is “against the rules (of the network) to promote violence, directly attack or threaten people on the basis of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender equality, religious affiliation, age, handicaps or illness”.
The network stopped short of citing Mr Ventura’s offending posts.
According to Observador, the outspoken MP’s Twitter account was suspended in May and September last year for “inciting hatred towards Eduardo Cabrita, former minister for Internal Administration, involved in the accident that killed a man working on the A6 motorway”.
It’s not clear what prompted the third suspension, although it may have been a warning about ‘uncontrolled Islamic immigration’, says the online.
Somewhere in the mix there was also a 12-hour suspension from posting (again because Twitter had deemed a remark unpleasant).
Mr Ventura’s decision to challenge Twitter’s banishment will be, he explains, in defence of ‘freedom of expression’.
