Former revenge porn operator and fringe Arizona Senate candidate Craig Brittain received the ultimate punishment today from his favorite social network. Twitter suspended Brittain for the second time, effectively banning him from the platform.
Recently, Brittain had been spreading gross conspiracy theories about the Parkland shooting survivors, calling them paid actors.
Brittain tweeted constantly under the name @SenatorBrittain, sharing missives that ranged from utterly bonkers to deeply offensive. In a text message conversation — his preferred means of responding to questions — Brittain said that Twitter is trying to sabotage his Senate campaign by blocking his account.
"After continually hiding tweets from most of our followers and refusing to verify our account, today Twitter proved that it is in the business of trying to rig elections for the left, as CEO Jack Dorsey is a donor and member of the Clinton Foundation," Brittain wrote. "Millions of conservatives and libertarians have been banned without reason, including Milo Yiannopoulos, Roger Stone, and others. If Twitter cares about fair elections they must restore and verify our account."
According to Twitter, the company may suspend accounts that violate rules around abuse, spam, and impersonating other people. Twitter previously banned Brittain's former account, @CraigRBrittain, in February 2017.
A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on individual accounts.
Two weeks ago, Brittain launched an attack on the high schoolers who survived the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, claiming that they were "nowhere near the scene when the shooting actually happened."
"How much are the Gun Control lobbies paying you?" Brittain wrote, using the hashtag #AskMSDStudents.
His lies prompted a quote-tweet from Parkland shooting survivor Jaclyn Corin, who responded to Brittain by saying that their only payment is "the joy that comes along with watching corrupt politicians destroy their own image."
According to the Twitter rules, when banning accounts for abusive behavior, the network takes into consideration whether "the behavior is targeted at an individual or group of people" or when "the report has been filed by the target of the abuse or a bystander."Our salaries = nonexistent. The only payment we’re receiving is the joy that comes along with watching corrupt politicians destroy their own image. #AskMSDStudents #MarchForOurLives https://t.co/gmCImObavj
— Jaclyn Corin (@JaclynCorin) March 19, 2018
Before his unthinkable run for Senate, Brittain ran a revenge-porn website and was forced to settle with the Federal Trade Commission.
Brittain's war with Twitter was a theme during his erstwhile life on the social network. He grew apoplectic when last month Twitter purged thousands of accounts that the network determined were bots, and Brittain claimed at the time that he lost around 2,000 followers as a result of what he referred to as "anti-right bias."
Brittain wrote in a text message that he didn't "tweet anything that isn't par for the course/outside the rules on Twitter."
"I have already appealed, but Twitter's appeal process is a kangaroo court," Brittain wrote. "Once banned, you don't get unbanned. It isn't staffed by humans – it is automated."
Farewell, @SenatorBrittain. You'll always have Facebook.
