Twitter briefly suspended former KKK leader David Duke and took away his followers

Twitter / Business Insider screenshot

A screenshot of David Duke's Twitter account shows him having only 69 followers after he was briefly suspended on Monday.

Twitter briefly suspended the account belonging to David Duke on Monday, after the former Ku Klux Klan leader traded insults with actor Chris Evans early last month.

While the suspension of Duke's account was brief, it appears as though Twitter reset the white nationalist's follower account. Duke had around 32,000 Twitter followers as of late February, and as of Monday his follower count had been reset to zero.

"I'm back," Duke wrote in a tweet on Monday after his account was reinstated. "Though I have no idea why I was suspended. Thank you to all of the wonderful people who offered support."

A Twitter spokesperson wasn't immediately available to comment.

Duke, a Holocaust-denier and outspoken Trump supporter, is the latest in a string of far-right figures to be suspended from Twitter in recent months. Twitter suspended and later reinstated white nationalist Richard Spencer in December, and the social network permanently banned Milo Yiannopoulos last summer.

Twitter has lately taken more steps to curb harassment and abuse on its platform, including temporarily throttling the reach of accounts it deems to be violating its rules.