After a successful online petition, right-wing troll Katie Hopkins has (finally) been permanently banned from Twitter. The ban arrived hours after Hopkins had complained that her blue tick had been removed from her profile—an account that had more than 1.1 million followers.
"Keeping Twitter safe is a top priority for us," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement. "Abuse and hateful conduct have no place on our service and we will continue to take action when our rules are broken. In this case, the account has been permanently suspended for violations of our hateful conduct policy."
Among Hopkins' many egregious crimes, she has tweeted constant support for U.S President Donald Trump (much of which he has retweeted), waged continuous attacks against London Mayor Sadiq Khan, claimed the harrowing photograph of a Syrian boy lying dead on a beach was "staged", described immigrants as "cockroaches", said refugees should be met with "gunboats", tweeted extensive criticism of Black Lives Matter, attacked footballer Marcus Rashford for his recent campaign to have free school meals provided to kids during the summer holidays, and much, much more.
Away from Twitter, Hopkins previously hosted a controversial show on LBC on which she called for a "final solution" in response to the Manchester Arena terror attacks. She was then fired from the Mail Online, where she had an equally controversial column, after making those comments, and has also previously written for Canadian far-right organisation Rebel Media, which is the same company that employed EDL leader and far-right figure Tommy Robinson.
Pressure is now being put on Instagram to ban Hopkins for the same reason.
