Twitter crackdown hits New Zealand: Hundreds of right-wing New Zealand users started Twitter

Twitter has suspended the accounts of what appear to be hundreds of New Zealand-based users, many of whom frequently expressed New Zealand right-wing political views.

Among the purge is former bill candidate Stephen Berry and several other tweeters, many consider controversial.

The purge appears to be part of the crackdown on Twitter, following the Capitol riots in the United States last week.

So far, the social media platform has selected more than 70,000 accounts, including that of outgoing US President Donald Trump.

Twitter said in a recent blog post that it removed the accounts to: “protect the conversation on our service from attempts to incite violence, stage attacks, and share deliberately misleading information about the election outcome.”

Many of the suspended US accounts had published conspiracy theories after the riots.

At this stage, little is known about why the New Zealand accounts were pulled. Visiting the account profiles displays a message that the account has been suspended.

But the common theme with many of the accounts now purged was that the vast majority of them were right-wing.

Berry, who has run as a candidate for the Act Party on several occasions, said he did not approve of what Twitter was doing.

But he said that Twitter owns the platform and has the right to do what it wants, even if it is something that it does not agree with.

“But just because you have the right to be an idiot, doesn’t mean you have to be.”

Twitter’s purge of primarily right-wing voices is already having a backlash, he said.

For example, many former users have flocked to other platforms and Twitter’s share price has been affected.

Berry was seen as a controversial figure on Twitter by many, as were many of the other accounts that have been suspended, such as ‘Redbaiternz’.

This user was very critical of Labor, the Green Party and the media.

Many of those who had their accounts suspended frequently sent abusive tweets to politicians and journalists in New Zealand.

Some of the users have been described as “far-right”.