Dozens of people who re-tweeted an article with Trump adviser Stephen Miller's phone number had their accounts suspended
- Several Twitter accounts were suspended Wednesday for sharing a Splinter News article containing a private phone number belonging to White House aide Stephen Miller.
- Miller is supposedly the architect of the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy.
- Twitter has since re-instated the suspended accounts after the phone number was shut off.
Twitter suspended the accounts of multiple users who shared a Splinter News article containing a personal phone number supposedly belonging to White House adviser Stephen Miller on Wednesday.
Miller, a 32-year old White House aide, is reportedly the author of some of the Trump administration's most controversial immigration policies, including the most recent "zero-tolerance" practice of prosecuting all adults who cross the US border illegally and separating them from their children in the process.
He has also been identified as the driving force behind the administration's ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, and its 120-day prohibition on Syrian refugees from entering the US.
In a subsequent article defending their sharing of the phone number, Splinter cited a Vanity Fair story where an anonymous White House official claimed that Miller "actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border," most likely referring to photos of distressed and crying children being separated from their parents and kept in shelters.
"He's a twisted guy, the way he was raised and picked on. There's always been a way he's gone about this. He's Waffen-SS," said the source.
After the article was published, Splinter later reported that their main Twitter page, as well as the accounts of several of their writers, had been temporarily suspended for re-tweeting or posting about the article.
Twitter's terms of service strictly prohibit "doxxing," or publicly posting someone else's personal information such their private phone number, physical address, or email address, without their "express authorization and permission."
Despite the suspensions, other users continued to share the number and upload screen-grabs of text messages they sent to it. Users who tried to call the number reported it had been disconnected.
In a Wednesday night statement to Buzzfeed, a Twitter spokesperson said suspensions of all the accounts who had shared the article have now been lifted, since the phone number was been shut off and is no longer working.