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No more tweets for neo-Nazis

October 18, 2012

The microblogging website Twitter has blocked the account of a German neo-Nazi group. The move came in response to a request from German police.

https://p.dw.com/p/16Rr6
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Image: twitter.com

In a statement posted on its website, Twitter announced that it had blocked the account of the banned neo-Nazi group Besseres Hannover.

"We announced the ability to withhold content back in Jan," tweeted Alex Macgillivray. "We're using it now for the first time re: a group deemed illegal in Germany."

Twitter also posted a link to the police message asking it to block the account.

The move means that while the account can still be found on Twitter, no messages posted after September 25 are visible from within Germany.

That's the date on which German authorities banned Besseres Hannover on the basis of evidence that it had sent an threatening video to Ayül Özkan; the social affairs minister of the state of Lower Saxony is of Turkish origin.

Prosecutors in the northern state have also launched an investigation into around half of the banned group's 40 members on suspicion of inciting racial hatred and setting up a criminal organization.

pfd/ipj (dpa, AFP)