Nicholas J. Fuentes, a far-right activist known for leading the so-called “Groyper” movement, has been banned from Twitter for what the social media company said were repeated violations of its rules.
A Twitter spokesperson confirmed Saturday that it permanently suspended the @NickJFuentes account from its platform. Twitter prohibits permanently suspended account owners from creating new accounts.
Fuentes, 22, was a verified Twitter user before being kicked Friday, meaning his profile and posts on the platform had a blue checkmark badge reserved only for certain public interest accounts.
About 139,000 other Twitter accounts followed Fuentes’s profile at the time of his suspension.
Posting on rival platform Telegram, Fuentes alleged that there was a connection between his suspension from Twitter and a report published the day before by the civil rights group Anti-Defamation League.
“Nicholas Fuentes is a white supremacist leader, organizer and podcaster who seeks to forge a white nationalist alternative to the Republican Party,” proclaimed the ADL in the report released Thursday.
“The ADL published a report on me and then I was permanently suspended hours later. That’s what happened, ”Fuentes said on Telegram the next day. The ADL did not have an immediate public response.
Fuentes attended the infamous “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, and most recently was outside the United States Capitol when rioters raped him on January 6, the ADL report noted.
The Justice Department has charged more than 500 people with crimes related to the riot on Capitol Hill so far. Fuentes is not among them, but his name has appeared in a related court file.
A footnote to an affidavit filed in federal court in February against one of the riot suspects, Christian Secor, referenced Mr. Fuentes, as well as his far-right Groyper movement and the podcast he hosts.
“The Groypers are a network of alt-right figures who openly support white supremacist and ‘America First’ podcaster Nick Fuentes,” an FBI agent said in the affidavit.
YouTube previously banned the “America First with Nick Fuentes” podcast from its service in early 2020. The Google-owned platform cited “multiple or serious violations” of its anti-hate speech policy.
Later in December, Mr. Fuentes was caught on camera leading chants of “Destroy the Republican Party!” amid a crowd of then-President Trump supporters who had been protesting in downtown Washington, DC
Mr. Secor, a college student when the riot occurred on January 6, faces 10 charges, including civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
