Who is David Duke, ex-KKK leader banned by Twitter

Team Udayavani, Aug 2, 2020, 10:03 AM IST

Twitter permanently banned the account of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke on Thursday, July 30. He was banned after multiple violations of the company’s hateful conduct policy.

The company also cited new policies announced in March that stipulate the platform will block links to harmful outside content

Duke joined Twitter in September 2009,and his account had more than 53,000 followers. Duke led the KKK from 1974 to 1978. He is called as America’s most well-known racist

Duke was banned from YouTube in June and has been routinely condemned for racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia.

Duke founded the Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKKK), shortly after graduating in 1974,  Duke would repeatedly insist that the Klan was “not anti-black” but rather “pro-white” and “pro-Christian”

He left the Ku clan in 1980 claiming he disliked its associations with violence. In 2002, He pleaded guilty to tax fraud and spent a year in a US prison.

Duke’s final tweet linked to an interview he had conducted with Germar Rudolf, who was convicted of Holocaust denial in Germany where it is a criminal offence.