Twitter permanently suspends David Icke’s account over coronavirus misinformation

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Twitter has permanently suspended David Icke’s account, after the conspiracy theorist breached its rules by making false claims about coronavirus.

"The account referenced has been permanently suspended for violating Twitter's rules regarding Covid misinformation,” a Twitter spokesperson said.

The decision comes after the former footballer had his YouTube and Facebook accounts terminated six months ago for spreading falsehoods.

The 68-year-old, who espouses discredited theories including one that links the coronavirus to the 5G mobile network, had more than 380,000 followers on Twitter. 

The move from Twitter follows a warning in July that it would “continue to remove demonstrably false or potentially misleading content that has the highest risk of causing harm”.

Rachel Riley, the Countdown presenter, was among those who celebrated the social media giant’s decision to remove Mr Icke from its platform.

"The UK's foremost hate peddler/conspiracy grifter has finally been chucked off Twitter,” Ms Riley tweeted on Tuesday evening.

The Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which says that Mr Icke’s Covid-19 conspiracies have been viewed tens of millions of times, criticised Twitter for taking so long to remove him, saying it had allowed him to disseminate “anti-Semitic hatred and dangerous Covid misinformation for months". 

His suspension comes after Kate Shemirani, another high-profile conspiracy theorist in the UK, had her Twitter account suspended last Thursday over misinformation. 

Mr Icke, who has made prominent appearances at anti-lockdown rallies in London in recent months, still has an Instagram page, which has more than 200,000 followers.

Over the weekend, he posted a video on the Facebook-owned platform in which he encourages people to “choose freedom”. It has now been more viewed more than 85,000 times.