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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
National

Wings Over Scotland returns to Twitter as Elon Musk takeover sees ban end

CONTROVERSIAL Scottish blogger Stuart Campbell, aka Wings Over Scotland, is back on Twitter after Elon Musk’s takeover saw a number of banned accounts reinstated.

The author of the Wee Blue Book became known for his pro-independence writing, but his focus has turned to criticising the SNP and gender politics in recent years.

Campbell has been banned from Twitter for over two years, with a number of his secondary accounts suspended too.

The blogger argued that Twitter never provided an explanation of how Wings Over Scotland broke the rules.

He accused the platform of “direct censorship and interference in the politics affairs” of Scotland, but Twitter said the ban was for "supposed hateful conduct".

In 2019, Campbell waded into a spat between journalists Helen Lewis and Louis Staples. Staples accused Lewis of using an analysis piece to link Labour's poor electoral performance with the then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s policies towards trans people. 

He was removed from the platform after entering the row by tweeting: “Sounds like you’re a c*** tbh”.

Speaking to The Scottish Sun, Campbell said: "That's entirely false. No other tweets were mentioned by Twitter - my account is regularly reported for malicious reasons, usually by trans-rights activists, but has always been found not to have violated any policies.”

It is thought that Campbell operated accounts under other names in recent years.

Returning to Twitter on Tuesday, he wrote: “Well hello again. We apologise for the interruption in service, which was due to circumstances outwith our control.”

He attached a screenshot for an email appearing to be from Twitter, which said @WingsScotland was unsuspended as it “does not appear to be in violation of the Twitter rules”.

The platform apologised for any “inconvenience”.

Since taking over Twitter in a 44 billion dollar deal, Musk has been quick to issue a number of changes to the platform.

One of those is ending permanent bans, which he doesn’t believe should be issued by Twitter.

Controversial figures like Donald Trump, Kanye West, Katie Hopkins and David Icke could be allowed back on the social media site as the plans are introduced.

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