Broadcaster Sean Plunket suspended from Twitter

Broadcaster and founder of online news site The Platform Sean Plunket has had his Twitter account suspended.

A post on The Platform Twitter account on Monday afternoon said Plunket had been “permanently suspended”, with Plunket describing the move as “Another victory for free speech” on his own Facebook page

Screenshots circulating online show the suspension is apparently due to his breaking privacy rules as well as the “hateful conduct rule”.

Plunket said he had no idea why he had been suspended. “I know as much as anyone,” he told Stuff.

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He said it was likely prompted by complaints from what he called the “anti-women brigade” who had turned out in force last week to protest planned events in Auckland and Wellington by anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull aka Posie Parker.

Plunket described the protests as “mob rule” and the ensuing cancellation of Parker’s “a victory for cancel culture and bullies in the trans and gay communities.

“It wasn’t me who whipped up hysteria about Nazis … given the crowing from the anti-women brigade [online] I’m presuming they complained,” he said.

However, human rights advocate Guled Mire was one of those to receive notification of the suspension. He had reported a tweet by Plunket that he said encouraged people to read the Christchurch mosque gunman’s so-called manifesto.

The document was banned by chief censor David Shanks for promoting, encouraging and justifying acts of murder and terrorist violence against identified groups of people.

”I reported it as hateful content. It was inexcusable to encourage his followers to do that.”

He had also reported it to the Department of Internal Affairs, but had yet to hear back from them.

He said he understood his was just one of a number of complaints about Plunket’s Twitter use.

Twitter’s hateful conduct rule states: “You may not attack other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”

Privacy rules include not publishing or posting other people’s private information, such as home phone number and address, without their express authorisation and permission.

They also prohibit threatening to expose private information or incentivising others to do so.