Twitter has blocked the account of Valencia City Council PSPV number two, Borja Sanjuan, for refusing to delete a tweet that included a photo of his sister’s wedding with her husband. The platform’s action came after a campaign by a far-right group known as “Unga Unga Army”, which specializes in making massive complaints against progressive social network profiles, to lead to their suspension. The group took responsibility for the actions on the Telegram channel.
“She is my sister and I was able to marry her. Today I already have two sisters. They are already woman and woman,” Sanjuan wrote in the post, which was accompanied by an image showing the three of them at the event. The tweet was posted on May 19, but it wasn’t until this Thursday that the social network tried to remove it for “violating the rules that prohibit the publication of private photos and videos.” said norms They apply to “highlighted images or videos that are taken, appear to be taken or shared without the consent of the individuals involved”, but not celebrations such as weddings.
Sanjuan is also PSPV’s current Community Spokesperson and Finance Advisor to the City Council chaired by Joan Ribault. After Sanjuan refused to remove the post, Twitter began blocking his account and restricting other users from accessing his tweets until his review request was resolved. This process can take weeks and will be done automatically after Elon Musk fired all the moderation teams on the platform to save costs.
The “Unga Unga Army” group is known for this type of action to destroy progressive Twitter profiles. They look for tweets that might be the focus of complaints and send a lot of complaints against him in a very short period of time. The maneuver sets off alarm bells in Twitter’s security system, and its algorithms block the account as a precaution. Sometimes victims can recover it after a review. In other cases, when members of a far-right group discover a tweet that may actually violate their rules, the suspension can become permanent, even if it’s old and no one has reported it before.
Marcelino Madrigal, a specialist who monitors the activities of far-right and rejectionist networks on Twitter and Telegram, warned just three days ago that the Unga Unga Army will concentrate its activities on Podemos and PSOE candidates for the Valencia elections. The expert published an analysis of the group’s activity on the platform, as well as screenshots where they say they have managed to block left-wing accounts or had to delete posts as a result of their actions.
“This is an attempt to make homophobic accusations. I’m very proud of being able to marry my sister-in-law and I’m not going to erase that, I shouldn’t. But of course, until they decide to claim, my account is blocked and this is the fee I will have to pay until the end of the campaign,” Sanjuan said in a statement to elDiario.es. “At the end of the day, it also means losing that media window just because you refuse to accept that an organized group of far-right extremists wants to take your sister’s wedding off the networks because it’s with another woman.”
The Unga Unga Army has been active for several years and its goals have changed over time. In addition to his generally progressive accounts, he has also had periods where his campaigns have been particularly aggressive in persecuting feminist and LGTBi activists on Twitter.
elDiario.es asked Twitter about the action of Unga Unga’s army and the blocking of Borja Sanjuan’s account. His press email returned an auto-reply emoji “💩,” as it has for months since Musk decided to lay off the company’s entire communications department.
Source: El Diario
