Alt-right to hit back at Twitter by flooding the platform with 'fake black person accounts'

Alt-right supporters have said they are planning to hit back at Twitter by creating thousands of what they called "fake black person" accounts in response to the platform's crackdown on hate speech and recent suspension of high-profile alt-right accounts.

Alt-right website the Daily Stormer claims that it has already created a thousand fake Twitter accounts with post histories and is urging its readers to create similar ones in retaliation to the platform's "aggressive purge of prominent Republican accounts".

"We've got a big campaign coming up," Andrew Anglin, founder of the Daily Stormer, wrote in a post. "Twitter is about to learn what happens when you mess with Republicans."

"When you have time, create a fake black person account," Anglin instructs his readers. "Just go on black Twitter and see what they look like, copy that model. Start filling it with rap videos and booty-shaking or whatever else these blacks post. Read through their posts to get an idea of how they post. You need to be able to post in a manner which is indistinguishable from normal black tweeters."

Earlier this week, Twitter announced plans to crack down on trolls, hate speech and online harassment on its platform through new features and policies, including a tool for users to "mute" specific conversations, keywords and phrases from their notifications.

"The amount of abuse, bullying and harassment we've seen across the internet has risen sharply over the past few years. These behaviours inhibit people from participating on Twitter, or anywhere," the company wrote in a blog post.

"Because Twitter happens in public and in real-time, we've had some challenges keeping up with and curbing abusive content. We took a step back to reset and take a new approach, find and focus on the most critical needs, and rapidly improve."

The company added that it plans to give users a more direct way to report harassment on the platform that violates its hateful conduct policies, particularly behaviour that targets people based on "race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease".

Shortly after the Twitter's announcement, a number of prominent accounts associated with the alt-right movement were suspended by the social media network, including those of Richard Spencer, the president and director of the National Policy Institute, Pax Dickinson, Paul Town, John Rivers and Ricky Vaughn.

The Twitter accounts of the white supremacist institute and Spencer's online magazine, RadixJournal.com, were also suspended.

"I am alive physically but digitally speaking there has been execution squads across the alt-right," Spencer said in a YouTube video. "It is corporate Stalinism. There is a great purge going on, and they are purging people based on their views."

He also claimed that the series of suspensions are part of a "coordinated effort to just wipe out alt-right Twitter" following accusations that social media helped Donald Trump win the election. Anglin has not specified what the publication plans to do with the fake "black person accounts", but noted that "further orders" will be released "shortly".

"I'm not sure how exactly Twitter will be able to maintain its prominent role in the social networking market when it bans all non-SJW political accounts, and becomes a safespace hugbox," Anglin wrote, referring to "social justice warrior" or liberals. "So what function will Twitter have if they ban political discourse? It seems to me they won't have any purpose at all."