White Nationalist Rally Organizer Loses Twitter Verification
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The organizer of the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has lost his verified status on Twitter, along with several other prominent white nationalists and far-right conservatives.
News outlets report Unite The Right organizer Jason Kessler on Wednesday lost the blue check mark that was bestowed upon him last month, a move that elicited backlash against the social media site from those who saw verification as an endorsement of Kessler's values or noteworthiness.
1 / UPDATE on our verification program and the actions we're taking.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 15, 2017
2 / Verification has long been perceived as an endorsement. We gave verified accounts visual prominence on the service which deepened this perception. We should have addressed this earlier but did not prioritize the work as we should have.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 15, 2017
Twitter said in a series of tweets that it eliminated the verification status of accounts in violation of new guidelines , which include those that promote discrimination-based hate or violence.
Kessler, who has previously used Twitter to say Heather Heyer's death at the August rally "was payback time," claims he's being censored. Twitter is a private company with no legal free-speech obligations to users.
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