List of people censored by Twitter

Notice from Twitter, terminating service for RickyVaughn99

This is a list of Twitter users whose accounts have been censored by Twitter. Some have been banned permanently while others have been suspended or "shadowbanned" temporarily. Other Twitter users have been censored in other ways.

These lists are organized in reverse chronological order from the date of the censorship takedown.

People permanently banned from Twitter

(Most recent on top:)

• On November 29, 2021, Jack Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO, and his replacement, Parag Agrawal, immediately began to purge Twitter of its remaining conservative userbase.

• On August 28th, 2021, Alex Berenson, former New York Times reporter and the author of 13 novels, two non-fiction books, was permanently suspended from Twitter for "repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules". He has since published several books and continues writing on Substack.

• On June 6th, 2021, American author and feminist Naomi Wolf was suspended after tweeting about COVID-19 vaccines, including claiming the vaccines were a "software platform that can receive uploads", comparing Dr. Anthony Fauci to Satan, waste products had to be separated from vaccinated vs unvaccinated people, and an image of an adult film star dressed up as a doctor.

• On February 11, 2021, Project Veritas, an activist journalism organization founded by journalist James O'Keefe, was permanently banned for "repeated violations of the platform's policies prohibiting sharing — or threats of sharing — other people's private information without consent." According to Project Veritas's Telegram account, "The tweet in question arose when asking for comment from Facebook's VP of Integrity about censorship" and "Project Veritas is appealing this decision, as no privacy was violated." O'Keefe claims Twitter initially said they would reinstate the account if the tweet was deleted, but in a response to CNN Business, Twitter claims they mistakingly communicated with Project Veritas and the suspension is permanent.

• On February 4, 2021, Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai (@va_shiva) was permanently banned after "he specifically mentioned one particular official in Galvin's office, Michelle Tassinari, whom he claims was part of the plot to keep him from his rightful seat in the Senate by destroying one million electronic ballots".

• On January 26, 2021, Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, was permanently banned for unspecified "repeated violations" of Twitter's "civic integrity policy".

• On January 22, 2021, an account "believed to be linked to Iran's supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (@khamenei_site) was permanently banned after posting an image of Donald Trump playing golf captioned in Farsi "Revenge is certain".

• On January 11, 2021, over 70,000 accounts were permanently suspended which were "engaged in sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale and were primarily dedicated to the propagation of this conspiracy theory across the service".

• On January 8, 2021, President Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump) was permanently suspended "due to the risk of further incitement of violence."

• On January 7, 2021, lawyer L. Lin Wood (@LLinWood), who filed several lawsuits alleging election fraud and had 1.18 million followers with more than 13,000 posts, was permanently suspended for "violating the company’s rules but declined to explain further". His last tweets accused "Democratic and Republican leaders of being communist sympathizers and sexual deviants."

• On November 30, 2020, mathematician and expert witness at 2020 election integrity hearings Bobby Piton (@BobbyPiton) was permanently suspended after saying he would "rather resign than have certified those results" in Arizona.

• On November 22, 2020, Joe Oltmann (@JoeOltmann), founder of Faith Education Commerce United, was suspended for revealing Dominion Voting Systems employee Eric Coomer responded (paraphased) "Don’t worry about the election, Trump’s not gonna win. I made f***ing sure of that!" on a conference call and revealing the voting systems employee's pro-Antifa Facebook posts.

• On November 6, 2020, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was suspended after he said on his Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, “I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you’re gone – time to stop playing games.”, referring to chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher A. Wray. A day earlier, Twitter allowed Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) to repost a photo of her posed with President Donald Trump’s bloody head sliced off its body in the ISIS tradition, and was not suspended.

• On November 29, 2019, the campaign account of Danielle Stella (@2020MNCongress), Republican challenger running against Democrat Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) of Minnesota, was permanently suspended for "repeated violations of Twitter rules". She tweeted "If it is proven @IlhanMN passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged". Reuters published an article three months later clarifying the suspension was not for "no reason".

• In May 2019, meme maker Carpe Donktum (@CarpeDonktum) was suspended because he "posted a hilarious meme that anti-Trump trolls Brian and Ed Krassenstein didn’t enjoy." Donktum appealed, was reinstated, but subsequently banned within 20 minutes for posting the same meme.

• Between April 30, 2019 to May 1, 2019, Twitter suspended two Venezuelan newspapers and institutions.

• On April 26, 2019, two British candidates for European Parliament, Tommy Robinson and Carl Benjamin (better known as Sargon of Akkad) had their official campaign accounts (@carlukip) suspended. The UK Independence Party responded "This is election interference, and UKIP will get to the bottom of this." Tommy Robinson and Carl Benjamin both had their personal accounts suspended previously.

• In March 2018, right-wing site Morgoth's Review had its account permanently banned.

• On February 20, 2018, white nationalist Jared Taylor and his American Renaissance organization sued Twitter in San Francisco Superior Court for having banned their accounts for political reasons.

• On February 13, 2018, Twitter permanently banned US Congressional candidate Paul Nehlen for posting an image where multiracial royal fiancee Meghan Markle's photo was blended with a reconstruction of an ancient Briton, who had been depicted with very dark skin for allegedly left-wing political reasons. The tweet was considered unacceptable, as the image might depict non-Asian minorities in a mocking or negative way, while Nehlen had already been condemned by the Southern Poverty Law Center for encouraging white racial pride.

• Godfrey Elfwick was banned on July 19, 2017, for "participating in targeted abuse", with the admonition that "Your account will not be restored. Thanks, Twitter".

• Ricky Vaughn was banned on October 7, 2016, for "violating the Twitter Rules", specifically the "rules around participating in targeted abuse."

• Milo Yiannopoulos was banned for "inciting abuse" against Leslie Jones, an actress who starred in the Ghostbusters reboot on July 19, 2016.

• Pax Dickinson's anonymous account "The Duck" (@jokeocracy) was permanently banned on January 26, 2016 after a series of jokes aimed at several journalists and left-wing activists that were determined to violate Twitter's harassment rules.

Unknown reasons for deletion

• On November 5, 2021, New Jersey truck driver and conservative political candidate Edward Durr had his Twitter and Facebook pages removed for unknown reasons, Twitter displaying "This account doesn't exist" on @edwarddurr1. "Newsweek reached out to Twitter, Facebook and Durr's campaign for comment on why the pages are down but didn't receive a response before publication." Durr competed in a tight race against New Jersey State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) in the state’s third Senate district..

People banned and suspended from Twitter

(Most recent on top:)

• On November 9, 2021, Newsmax White House Correspondent Emerald Robinson was suspended. Her last pinned tweet on September 21, 2021 read "The pandemic is to force you to get the vaccine. The vaccine is to force you to get the vaccine passport. The vaccine passport is to force you into the social credit system. The social credit system is to force you into obeying the government.".

• On February 4, 2021, publishing Mike Lindell's "Absolute Proof" special, exposing data and facts about the 2020 election, caused One America News Network to be suspended for 11 hours, with Twitter claiming the contents of the video on Rumble are too "dangerous" to be viewed.

• On February 1, 2021, dozens of high-profile accounts were withheld in India, including: Caravan (@thecaravanindia, a news outlet that conducts investigative journalism), political commentator Sanjukta Basu, activist Hansraj Meena, actor Sushant Singh, Shashi Shekhar Vempati, chief executive of state-run broadcasting agency Prasar Bharti, Preeti Sharma Menon and Jarnail Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party, and two popular accounts linked to ongoing protests by farmers Kisan Ekta Morcha and @Tractor2Twitr. Accessing the accounts was blocked with a message that the "account has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand." After 12 hours, Twitter quietly restored the accounts. Journalist Lauren Frayer observed "It appears the one thing they had in common was criticizing the govt's treatment of farmers."

• On January 11, 2021, journalist Jim Hoft of the conservative news outlet The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) received a 12-hour suspension for tweeting "They stole an election. Now they want to silence anyone who questions the fraud.", despite Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, on May 16, 2017 tweeting "Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts."

• On January 7, 2021, the official account for the Chinese Embassy to the United States (@ChineseEmbinUS) was locked after tweeting "Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines. They are more confident and independent."

• On November 25, 2020, Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano (@dougmastriano) was suspended after leading a panel to investigate the possibility of election fraud. President Donald Trump tweeted in response: "Wow! Twitter bans highly respected Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano after he did a great job of leading a hearing on the 2020 Election fraud. They and the Fake News, working together, want to SILENCE THE TRUTH. Can't let that happen. This is what Communist countries do!" Subsequently, Twitter reinstated Mastriano's account, releasing a statement "This account was mistakenly suspended for perceived violations of our impersonation policy. This was an error. We have immediately reversed the decision and the account has been reinstated."

• On November 11, 2020, pollster and statistician Richard Baris (@Peoples_Pundit), his wife (@LauraBaris) and polling agency (@BigDataPoll) were suspended after he released an analysis claiming over 10,000 dead or non-existent people returned mail-in ballots in Michigan. The accounts were restored within a day.

• On November 4, 2020, the account @Ninja_StuntZ belonging to an unidentified individual was banned after Eric Trump retweeted a video from this user in which a "man claims to have stolen around 80 ballots, before pouring fuel on them and lighting them ablaze.".

• On November 3, 2020, the right-leaning news account @SVNewsAlerts which "frequently warned of election-related unrest and highlighted issues with voting safety and reliability" and "pointed to fraud claims about Democrats and called attention to Republican President Donald Trump’s rallies and speeches", along with @FJNewsReporter, @Crisis_Intel and @Faytuks, were suspended for violating Twitter policies against "coordination".

• On May 11, 2020, psychologist Ray Blanchard Ph.D., creator of Blanchard's transsexualism typology, was locked for expressing his clinical opinion that "Sex change surgery should not be considered for any patient until that patient has reached the age of 21 years and has lived for at least two years in the desired gender role." A day later after apologizing and admitting the error, Twitter unlocked Blanchard's account.

• On January 31, 2020, the financial blog Zero Hedge was suspended following investigative journalism into the origins of Coronavirus disease 2019.

• In late 2017, Twitter suspended or terminated multiple accounts of well-known white nationalists after imposing new rules against this type of content. The group Britain First, which documents and protests instances of Muslim group and individual violence in the UK, was banned by Twitter after a post from one of the three blocked accounts was retweeted by President Trump. The accounts of group leaders Jayda Fransen and Paul Golding were also suspended.

• Rose McGowan's twitter account was suspended on Oct 11, 2017 for 12 hours allegedly related to her tweets about Harvey Weinstein's sexual misconduct.

• Pax Dickinson was suspended on November 15, 2016.

• Nick Land's @Outsideness account, a.k.a. Xenosystems, a.k.a. the "Outside In" blog, was reportedly disabled in mid February 2017. It was restored after he made a blog post about the matter.
• Hunter Avallone's Twitter account was suspended on March 7, 2017.

• The account @EastwoodUSA - mistaken for but reportedly not actually the account of Clint Eastwood - was suspended on November 9, 2016 shortly after tweeting "Thank you America, I don't have long left to live but now I know the last few years will be great, I can't thank you enough #PresidentTrump" At the same time, Morgan Eastwood, Clint Eastwood's daughter is quoted as claiming that the account was not operated by Clint Eastwood:

STOP POSING AS MY DAD EVERYONE KNOWS HE WOULD NOT KNOW HOW TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA ... Everyone knows this isn’t really his account. I would know.

— Morgan Eastwood,

• James O'Keefe, founder of the investigative journalism non-profit organization Project Veritas, was banned from accessing his Twitter account for twelve hours at 7:59 PM EST on October 12, 2016 without explanation. He had previously released videos detailing alleged electoral fraud by the Democratic Party in the United States presidential election, 2016.

• Glenn Reynolds, professor of law at the University of Tennessee, USA Today columnist, and blogger known as Instapundit, was suspended due to a September 21, 2016 tweet concerning rioters in Charlotte stopping, surrounding, and looting vehicles on the highway.

• The popular Vladimir Putin parody account @DarthPutinKGB was suspended on May 31, 2016 but reactivated a day later.

• Journalist Robert Stacy McCain's account @rsmccain was suspended on February 19, 2016 without explanation, prompting the creation of the hashtag #FreeStacy.

• Charles C Johnson was banned on May 24, 2015 for violating Twitter rules “around participating in targeted abuse” by inviting his Twitter followers to fund him "taking out" DeRay Mckesson, co-founder of the policy platform Campaign Zero and proponent of the Black Lives Matter movement.

People shadowbanned at Twitter

(Most recent on top:)

• On October 1st, 2021, Kelly Bee @ke11ybender tweeted about a vaccine-related obituary (main article: List of deaths and injuries following COVID-19 vaccination) "Seattle, WA — Jessica Berg Wilson, an "exceptionally healthy and vibrant 37-year-old young mother with no underlying health conditions," passed away from COVID Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia. She did not want to get vaccinated. 😥 RIP🕊️https://obits.oregonlive.com/us/obituaries/oregon/name/jessica-wilson-obituary?pid=200278331". Twitter shadow-banned the tweet as misleading. . Following an outcry including being called out by Sebastian Gorka, "who served in the Department of Defense under former President Donald Trump", Twitter removed the misleading label and lifted the shadow ban, two days later.

• Anna Maria Perez was shadowbanned on October 26th, 2016.

• Malik Obama, brother of President Obama, was shadowbanned on October 20, 2016.

• @HdHammer865 was shadowbanned on October 2, 2016. He also received an email from Twitter notifying him that his account was now locked for "suspicious activities" on October 3, 2016.

• Scott Adams, the American cartoonist and creator of Dilbert, was shadowbanned on October 1, 2016. He later made numerous additional claims that his account was being throttled and asked his readers to provide screenshots of specific examples.

• Alt-Right writer Brett Stevens was shadowbanned on August 28, 2016.

• Dragon Award-winning science fiction author Brian Niemeier was shadowbanned on July 29, 2016.

• Donald Trump was shadowbanned by Twitter in July 2016.

• Vox Day was shadowbanned on February 14, 2016.

People censored in other ways at Twitter

(Most recent on top:)

• On March 15, 2021, Martin Kuldorff, one of the most cited epidemiologists and infectious-disease experts in the world (latest count of citations: 25,290), Harvard Professor and co-creator of the Great Barrington Declaration, had engagement disabled and received a misleading flag on his tweet: "No. Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.".

• On January 23, 2021, journalist Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) was censored for a tweet repeating Amazon's claims about mail-in ballots: "The owner of the Washington Post has officially stated that mail-in ballot elections have serious and systemic flaws."

• On January 19, 2021, journalist Michelle Malkin (@MichelleMalkin) and the Right Side Broadcasting Network (@RSBNetwork) were suspended for 12 hours preceding the inauguration of Joe Biden. No explanation was given but Malkin posted on Telegram: "Twitter doesn't want me expressing my opinions 24 hours before inauguration. No reason given, but of course we know the reason. If you're on Twitter, spread the word. Thanks,".

• In late September, 2018, actor James Woods was locked out of his @RealJamesWoods account, prompting tweets and hashtags such as #FreeJamesWoods from other Twitter users.

• In November 2017, Twitter removed verification badges from white nationalists accounts including Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai commented that Twitter has a "double standard" that favors left-wing and penalizes right-wing users. However, US left-wing politician Diane Feinstein demanded that Twitter ban all political accounts that are too right-wing.

• Links to WikiLeaks (https://wikileaks.com) were declared "unsafe" on 12 October 2016.

Notice from Twitter, links to Wikileaks are labeled as "unsafe"

• Links to the Vox Day blog Vox Popoli were declared "unsafe" by Twitter on September 21, 2016. Numerous people, including Day himself, had their accounts locked for tweeting or retweeting links to his blog.

Possible discovery of the Twitter admin censorship panel

[In July, 2020,] ...hackers gained access to many of the top accounts on the site, screenshots of the platform’s administration panel were released showing administrators have the ability to blacklist accounts from being searched for or being allowed to trend on the app. Several screenshots, allegedly of a “secret admin panel” were circulating last night, presumably made by the hackers themselves. Twitter seemed to confirm they were genuine when it began to suspend every account that shared the images.

https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/twitter-is-so-busted-screenshots-leak-showing-massive-censorship-operation/ https://www.citizenfreepress.com/column-3/hackers-get-biden-obama-accounts/