Spanish court backs Twitter’s temporary ban on Vox party over Islamophobic tweet

The Supreme Court of Spain on Tuesday backed Twitter’s decision to temporarily block the account of Vox party for hate speech, Anadolu News Agency reports.

The social media platform decided to block the far-right party from tweeting for eight days in early 2021 during the party’s electoral run in Catalonia.

In one of the tweets related to its “Stop Islamisation” campaign, Vox shared the inaccurate statistics that Muslim immigrants make up just 0.2 per cent of the population in Catalonia, but were responsible for 93 per cent of crimes committed.

After Twitter blocked the party’s account for inciting hatred against Muslims, Vox decided to take Twitter to court.

“The billionaires in the tech world don’t want people to understand the consequences of the migration invasion that they promote alongside certain governments,” responded Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, at the time, slamming the move as “censorship.”

Now, more than a year later, the Supreme Court threw out Vox’s case.

The court’s main argument for backing Twitter’s decision was that Vox agreed to the rules of the social media platform when it opened the account.

READ: The targeting of Islam in the world is a worrying development

Twitter also suspended Vox from tweeting in 2020, after it accused the ruling Socialist Party of “promoting paedophilia with public money.”

All suspensions have been temporary and Vox continues to gain traction on social media and in the polls.

On Monday, an opinion poll published by Spanish daily, El Pais, suggests that Vox is the only major party that has grown in popularity since Spain’s 2019 national elections.

According to the poll, with 19.2 per cent of support, Vox is the third-most-popular party in Spain.