Twitter suspends account linked to boosting MAGA teens controversy

Nick Sandmann, a junior at Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, left, and Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist, in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 18, 2019.
Nick Sandmann, a junior at Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, left, and Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist, in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 18, 2019.
Image: KC NOLAND YOUTUBE

Twitter has suspended an account which was linked to the magnification of a confrontation between high school students wearing MAGA hats and Native American protesters.

According to CNN, the account @2020fight was suspended from the social media platform after it shared a captioned video of the encounter on Jan. 18 in Washington D.C., where both the Indigenous Peoples March and the anti-abortion March For Life were taking place. 

Groups from both, as well as a handful of protesters linked to the Black Hebrew Israelites, converged near the Lincoln Memorial. This led to a standoff between 64-year-old Native American elder Nathan Phillips and MAGA-hat wearing teenager Nick Sandmann, which would be shared in many viral videos throughout the weekend.

One particular video, shared by Twitter user @2020fight, cut with a tight edit and loaded caption, played a particularly important role in the spread of misinformation about the event.

The video, which CNN Business reports clocked up 2.5 million views and 14,400 retweets, was captioned, "This MAGA loser gleefully bothering a Native American protester at the Indigenous Peoples March." 

Unfortunately, the video didn't show the whole encounter, particularly the events preceding it, unlike a nearly two-hour YouTube video filmed by a Black Hebrew Israelite demonstrator. That video shows a handful of Black Hebrew Israelite protesters shouting insults at both the teens and the Native Americans. The teens, huddled on the Lincoln Memorial steps, respond by shouting a school fight song, with one taking off their shirt and waving it around. Phillips, followed by other Indigenous Peoples March attendees, walked in between the two groups and sang a Native American peace song while beating on a drum. Phillips walked up to Sandmann, still singing, as Sandmann grinned. Other teens encircling the two laughed, shouted, and seemingly mocked Phillips.

The edit shared by @2020fight, with its framing of Sandmann, a junior at Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School, as the instigator of the confrontation, drove much of the immediate news coverage. 

In the days following, the context surrounding the situation developed into a much more complicated story, with Sandmann releasing a statement  to CNN's Jake Tapper saying his actions had been mischaracterized.

"I would caution everyone passing judgement based on a few seconds of video to watch the longer clips that are on the internet, as they show a much different story than is being portrayed by people with agendas," Sandmann wrote.

Phillips says he walked in between the teens and the Black Hebrew Israelites to diffuse tension, according to the New York Times, and seen in the aforementioned longer YouTube video.

The @2020fight account, which CNN reports was set up in December 2016, was tweeting up to 130 times a day, and had more than 40,000 followers, was operating under the guise of a "teacher" and "advocate" named Talia, from California. "Fighting for 2020," the account's bio reportedly read.

"Deliberate attempts to manipulate the public conversation on Twitter by using misleading account information is a violation of the Twitter Rules," a Twitter spokesperson told Mashable.

Twitter's suspension of the account indicates a more active move against the spread of misinformation on the social platform. And the company has plenty to clean up — a 2018 study found that “more than 80 percent” of Twitter accounts that were involved in spreading falsehoods during the 2016 election campaign are still active on the social network.

Following the suspension, the the House Intelligence Committee asked Twitter for more information about the account. 

As the 2020 U.S. presidential election nears, looks like all eyes are on social media's role as bullhorn — for better or for worse. 

Additional reporting by Nicole Gallucci.

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