Image copyright Twitter Image caption The Britain First Twitter account and that of its two leaders have been blocked 
 
 Twitter has suspended the accounts of two leaders of a British far-right group shortly after revising its rules on hate speech. 
 
 Paul Golding, Britain First's leader, and Jayda Fransen, his deputy, can no longer tweet and their past posts no longer appear. 
 
 The organisation's official Twitter page has suffered the same fate. 
 
 It appears that three of Ms Fransen's posts that President Trump retweeted have gone from his feed as a result. 
 
 The messages had featured anti-Muslim videos and proved highly controversial when the American leader shared them in November. 
 
 British Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said it had been "wrong for the president to have done this". 
 
 Ms Fransen and Mr Golding were arrested earlier this week over separate behaviour relating to Northern Ireland. 
 
 Restricted swastikas 
 
 Twitter announced in October that it planned to take a tougher stance against hate symbols as well as those who posted messages that glorified or condoned violence. 
 
 It has now said that those who express an affiliation with groups that use or celebrate violence to achieve their aims will be permanently suspended. 
 
 Hateful imagery - such as the Nazi swastika - can still be posted, but will initially be hidden behind a "sensitive media" warning, that visitors must disable to proceed. However, such content will no longer be allowed on a person's profile page. 
 
 Those that featured examples will be asked to remove them. Repeat violators will be banned. 
 
 The company said the move would "reduce the amount of abusive behaviour and hateful conduct" on the network. 
 
 "If an account's profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended," it explained. 
 
 "We plan to develop internal tools to help us identify violating accounts to supplement user reports." 
 
 Twitter has promised a more robust system to appeal against decisions, but said that it was still in development. 
 
 US bans 
 
 The company is not commenting about the action it is taking against individual accounts citing "privacy and security reasons". 
 
 That has left it to others to play detective and report who else has been suspended. Many are using the hashtag #twitterpurge to do so. 
 
 US accounts that appear to have fallen foul of the new rules include: 
 
 Jared Taylor, head of American Renaissance, a website that champions "racial difference" 
 
 Michael Hill and Hunter Wallace - leader and public relations chief, respectively, of the League of the South, which is described as a "hate group" by civil rights campaigners at the Southern Poverty Law Center 
 
 the American Nazi Party, which had tweeted it was "inevitable that we will be banned" at the weekend 
 
 the Traditionalist Worker Party, a white supremacist group 
 
 End Time Paradigm, an account that specialised in anti-Semitic content 
 
 Several other members of the so-called alt-right have tweeted that fans should sign up to Gab.ai - a social network that pitches itself as a free speech alternative to Twitter - if they too are suspended. 
 
 Generation Identity, a pan-European nationalist group that opened a British branch last month, has also had its UK and Ireland Twitter account suspended. ||||| Twitter on Monday suspended the account of a top official of a far-right British group whose anti-Muslim videos President Trump retweeted last month, amid the company's move to crack down on content that promotes hate or threatens violence against people or groups. 
 
 The implementation of Twitter's new rules was the latest attempt by technology companies to crack down on abuses of their platforms in the aftermath of Charlottesville’s bloody demonstration in August. Though Twitter’s announcement in a morning blog post did not make this connection explicit, companies have been scrambling for months to address allegations that their platforms had become breeding grounds for extremist groups. 
 
 Far-right political figures have been criticizing these moves as assaults on their rights to free speech, and some have called Twitter’s new policy part of an effort to “purge” them. Among those whose accounts went offline Monday were three affiliated with the group Britain First, including its main account and those maintained by its leader, Paul Golding, and his deputy Jayda Fransen. It was her anti-Muslim posts last month that were retweeted by President Trump, a move that earned him sharp rebuke from British Prime Minister Theresa May. 
 
 The White House declined to comment on the suspension of the accounts of Fransen and others. 
 
 Britain First also did not reply to requests for comment but, according to a CNBC report, said in an email to members, "Twitter is now only available to those on the 'left' of politics. This latest attack on our movement demonstrates that 'free speech' is only available to those who do not criticize socialism or Islam." 
 
 Late last month, after Trump retweeted three of Fransen’s videos, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that his action was intended to “elevate the conversation” about the issues of “extreme violence and terrorism.” 
 
 The three videos Trump shared were provocatively titled “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!”, “Muslim destroys a statue of Virgin Mary!” and “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!” The videos provided no context, and the Netherlands Embassy said that the one about a “Muslim migrant” actually featured a perpetrator born and raised in the Netherlands. 
 
 Following Trump’s retweets, Fransen touted the U.S. president’s promotion of her videos. “Donald Trump himself has retweeted these videos and has around 44 million followers!” she tweeted. “God Bless You Trump! God Bless America!” 
 
 Also suspended by Twitter Monday were accounts for the group American Renaissance, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has called an extremist group, and its leader, Jared Taylor. 
 
 In a statement Monday, American Renaissance said: "Twitter said it has begun enforcing new rules against 'hateful and abusive content.' American Renaissance and Jared Taylor violate none of those rules. Anyone familiar with our work recognizes that we present our dissident political views with civility. We have never even hinted at anything that could be seen as condoning violence or illegality, nor do we associate with those who do. We’ve taken special care to abide by Twitter’s terms of service–old and new." 
 
 [Trump’s retweets elevate a tiny fringe group of anti-Muslim activists in Britain] 
 
 Twitter Monday declined to specify which accounts it suspended or how many. 
 
 According to its new rules, “violent extremist groups” will be prohibited from having accounts on the network. The new guidelines target accounts from groups that explicitly call for violence against individuals or ethnic and other social groups, for example, or make clear that their main objective is to promote violence. Twitter is also going to crack down on hateful imagery such as symbols and logos, which appear in users’ profile pictures or cover photos. Users who break these rules will have one opportunity to fix it; if they violate the rules again, their accounts will be suspended. 
 
 The company will decide which groups meet its definition of a violent extremist group by consulting nonprofit organizations, governments and other experts. Any individual account or tweet that promotes violence against someone will prompt Twitter to suspend that account — temporarily or permanently, depending on how that user has acted in the past. 
 
 Twitter critics have repeatedly called on the company to crack down more on hateful language, imagery and calls for violence spread through its site. But the problem came to a head recently as Twitter has grappled with the growing presence of hate groups on its network — and criticism that it’s allowing hateful rhetoric to spread unchecked. After the company verified the account of Jason Kessler, one of the main organizers of the Charlottesville rally, it then reversed its decision and said it would reevaluate its process for choosing the accounts it authenticates. Kessler's account remains online. 
 
 The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement praising Twitter's crackdown on Monday. "We have long urged Twitter to push back against hateful and violent rhetoric, and these latest actions are encouraging," the group said. 
 
 [Twitter attacked after it verifies account of Charlottesville rally organizer] 
 
 While Twitter has not yet announced new rules around verification, the new guidelines do more closely govern what individual users can post to their profiles. 
 
 The effect of these rules will depends on how Twitter enforces them. The company did not offer further details about how it will consider these rules in conjunction with its “newsworthiness” standard, which has been the company’s explanation for why it has not removed certain tweets from Trump’s account that would otherwise violate its rules for conduct. 
 
 [Twitter users want Trump’s account suspended for ‘threatening violence’ against North Korea] 
 
 In addition to changing its policies, the company is also changing the way it describes some of its rules to users. The company’s “Help Center,” which is the main resource for Twitter users looking for information about its rules, will now also include a “rationale” section that explains more about how Twitter arrived at its policies and how it enforces them. 
 
 Twitter acknowledged that these rules alone won’t come close to fixing everything wrong with the social network, and even cautioned that its efforts to be more strict could result in disciplining some people who haven't broken the rules in the process. 
 
 “In our efforts to be more aggressive here, we may make some mistakes and are working on a robust appeals process,” the company’s blog post said, adding that it will continue evolving its rules based on user feedback. 
 
 John Wagner and David Weigel contributed to this report. ||||| Today, we will start enforcing updates to the Twitter Rules announced last month to reduce hateful and abusive content on Twitter. Through our policy development process, we’ve taken a collaborative approach to develop and implement these changes, including working in close coordination with experts on our Trust and Safety Council. 
 
 New Policies 
 
 New Rules on Violence and Physical Harm 
 
 Specific threats of violence or wishing for serious physical harm, death, or disease to an individual or group of people is in violation of our policies. Our new changes include more types of related content including: 
 
 Accounts that affiliate with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes. Groups included in this policy will be those that identify as such or engage in activity — both on and off the platform — that promotes violence. This policy does not apply to military or government entities and we will consider exceptions for groups that are currently engaging in (or have engaged in) peaceful resolution. 
 
 Content that glorifies violence or the perpetrators of a violent act. This includes celebrating any violent act in a manner that may inspire others to replicate it or any violence where people were targeted because of their membership in a protected group. We will require offending Tweets to be removed and repeated violations will result in permanent suspension. 
 
 Expanding our Rules to Include Related Content 
 
 Our hateful conduct policy and rules against abusive behavior prohibit promoting violence against or directly attacking or threatening other people on the basis of their group characteristics, as well as engaging in abusive behavior that harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence another person’s voice. We are broadening these policies to include additional types of related content and conduct including: 
 
 Any account that abuses or threatens others through their profile information, including their username, display name, or profile bio. If an account’s profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended. We plan to develop internal tools to help us identify violating accounts to supplement user reports. 
 
 Hateful imagery will now be considered sensitive media under our media policy. We consider hateful imagery to be logos, symbols, or images whose purpose is to promote hostility and malice against others based on their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin. If this type of content appears in header or profile images, we will now accept profile-level reports and require account owners to remove any violating media. 
 
 What’s Next 
 
 Today, we are starting to enforce these policies across Twitter. In our efforts to be more aggressive here, we may make some mistakes and are working on a robust appeals process. We’ll evaluate and iterate on these changes in the coming days and weeks, and will keep you posted on progress along the way. 
 
 We’re making these changes to create a safer environment for everyone. You can follow our ongoing work and other safety updates @TwitterSafety. 
 
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– Twitter suspended three accounts belonging to a far-right group in Britain on Monday, a development that might not have made headlines if not for the group's connection to President Trump. Last month, the president set off a controversy when he retweeted three anti-Muslim videos posted by Jayda Fransen of the anti-immigration group Britain First. Fransen boasted of Trump's retweets at the time, but she won't be able to post anything new for a while: Her account and at least two others linked to her group are now suspended, reports CNN. Twitter says it will not comment about decisions made regarding particular accounts, per the BBC, but the move comes just as the site announced that it was enforcing new rules to curb "hateful conduct and abusive behavior." It's not clear whether the Britain First accounts will be allowed to resurface. "If an account's profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended," reads a company post. The crackdown is part of Twitter's move to rein in what it sees as abusive content in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., notes the Washington Post.