Richard Spencer Twitter Account: Social Network Reinstates Alt-Right Leader

Almost a month after Twitter deleted numerous alt-right accounts from its platform, including that of white nationalist/activist Richard Spencer, the company reinstated his account over the weekend --with its verified status-- the Guardian reported.

Spencer leads the National Policy Institute (NPI), which was launched in 2005 and is “dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States,” according to its website. Spencer has previously said he wants blacks, Asians, Hispanics and Jews ejected from the country.

On Nov. 15, Twitter announced new steps to curb online abuse and removed numerous alt-right accounts, including Spencer’s account and the accounts for NPI, Spencer’s publishing company Washington Summit Publishers and his magazine Radix Journal.

But it seems that Spencer’s account was deleted for other reasons. An email Twitter sent to Spencer suggests the white nationalist leader was banned for running multiple accounts with too much overlap.

“ 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,” a Twitter rep told the Guardian .

The email Twitter sent Spencer says:

“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.”

Spencer returned to Twitter on Dec. 10 with a tweet saying, “I’m back.”

He then tweeted, “I worked on getting my personal reinstated first. Next will be Radix, NPI, _AltRight_ and WSP.”