Paul Nehlen Has Become A Twitter Martyr For The Far Right
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Ari Feldman February 15, 2018
Paul Nehlen became a full-fledged social media martyr for the far right Wednesday after Twitter permanently banned him from the service for a racist tweet about Meghan Markel, Prince Harry’s fiance, Right Wing Watch reported. Nehlen has gained notoriety for his racist and anti-Semitic social media posts during his candidacy to unseat House Speaker Paul Ryan in the 2018 midterm elections.
Nehlen has been suspended from Twitter twice in the past for anti-Semitic tweets alleging Jewish control of the media. The permanent ban came after he posted an image of Meghan Markel with the face of Cheddar Man — the reconstructed face of an ancient human.
Nehlen’s ban lit up far right social media, with supporters on Twitter changing their names to “Paul Nehlen” and their profile photos to the would-be politician’s own profile picture. The hashtags #FreeNehlen and #ShallNotCensor, Nehlen’s trademark, were trending on Wednesday.
According to Right Wing Watch, the instructions to change profile pictures and names on Twitter came from 4chan, a forum frequented by people on the far right, including white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
The Twitter account of Gab.ai, a micro-blogging service that has pledged not to censor hate speech, posted a tweet suggesting that the Anti-Defamation League was behind Nehlen’s ban.
Who could possibly be behind @pnehlen’s ban? ??♂️ pic.twitter.com/6GoDcMBC7j
— Gab: Free Speech Social Network (@getongab) February 11, 2018
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
