PRO-independence blogger Stuart Campbell has accused Twitter of "directly interfering in national politics" after his new political party's account was suspended.
The 51-year-old, who runs the Wings Over Scotland site, is considering launching the pro-Yes party in time for the 2021 Holyrood elections.
Twitter banned the @WingsPartyScot account, which had not tweeted anything yet, as soon as it was created, saying it broke rules "against managing multiple Twitter accounts for abusive purposes".
Campbell announced the rejection of the account on Twitter. He said: "As far as I can tell this does not breach any of Twitter's rules, as the party is a distinct entity from the political website. Nope, banned straight away without doing anything. Appealed. Should be interesting."
Nope, banned straight away without doing anything. Appealed. Should be interesting.
— Rev. Stuart Campbell (@RevStu) March 2, 2020
Campbell said the final decision on the launch of the party, which would be supportive of most of the SNP's policies, will take place in April.
He told The National: "This wasn't an official launch of the party. But it raises the extremely concerning prospect of Twitter directly interfering in national politics by silencing a political party in an election, based on an already-unjustified sanction against the biggest Scottish politics website in the country, which Twitter still refuses to give an explanation for.
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“The original Wings account has not breached any of Twitter's terms and conditions and nor did this one, but both have been banned for expressing views Twitter, or certain of its employees, appears to be opposed to."
Campbell floated the idea of a Wings Party in August last year, telling The Times Nicola Sturgeon's party is "in a shambles".
“I think the SNP is a shambles at the moment. It doesn’t know what it’s doing," he told the newspaper.
He said he would start the ball rolling “if it looked like there wasn’t going to be a pro-independence majority, which I think is a very real danger".
Wings Over Scotland is the nation’s most-read political blog, with about 250,000 unique visitors a month.
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