This Monday hundreds of users on Twitter appeared to be 'blocked' by a pro-Labour party account called “Labour Left Voice” for reasons that are not clear yet.
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The story started when a Jewish Labour Movement activist, Rebecca Filer, tweeted a screenshot showing she had been blocked by “Lab Left Voice” on Twitter with “Sad.” in the caption.
Sad. pic.twitter.com/09ZtFQDLdh
— Rebecca Filer (@RebeccaFiler) June 16, 2019
Hours later, her tweet had exploded with screenshots from other users who shared similar screenshots showing they are blocked by the same account as well.
Me too - such nachas!! pic.twitter.com/YIlFZCru4l
— Jack Lubner (@JackLubner) June 16, 2019
The trend gathered momentum leading another Jewish Labour Movement’s activist to quote Filer’s tweet calling on Jews who have been blocked by Lab Left Voice to write a comment.
The response to the tweet was massive and the replies reached more than 1800 comments with people sharing screenshots for their blocked accounts from Lab Left Voice.
If you are Jewish and have also been blocked by @lableftvoice despite never interacting with them, please add to the thread ⬇️ https://t.co/uwiXVvM37T
— jack mayorcas (@jackamayorcas) June 16, 2019
What was surprising in the trend is that most of the blocked accounts have in fact stated they never interacted with the pro-Labour account, yet many of them were Jewish activists who tweeted or spoke out against anti-Semitism, some of them had also pro-Palestine opinions.
Never heard of them, let alone interacted with them. pic.twitter.com/rRluJJhQVc
— בנימן טבלוב | Benjamin (@bentev28) June 17, 2019
Meanwhile, tens of accounts joined the wave despite the fact that they are not Jews.
Not Jewish, but I tweet a lot about antisemitism. What is bizarre, is that I tweet in portuguese, not in English. pic.twitter.com/0Lp3MsOPK2
— may (@ilooklikeshit) June 17, 2019
I'm Muslim and blocked also who the hell are they
— rabia O'chaudry (@rabiasquared) June 18, 2019
It led users to start speculating the reasons what would lead the leftist account to block users leading to several conspiracy theories.
You blocked numerous leftist Jews I'm friends with, who didn't even interact with you. This includes ones who defend my fellow Palestinians rights. You guys r either anti semitic, morons, or both, & you do not represent my peoples struggles. No wonder Corbyn doesn't win elections
— (((Sultan-Caliph Abdallah?))) (@abdallaha92) June 17, 2019
I am Jewish. I use Oy Vey every day. Not blocked.
— Johnny Seifert (@JohnnySeifert) June 17, 2019
Others have called out the account asking about the reasons behind blocking them, yet the only response from the Lab Left Voice account was that they block accounts “that abuse us on a daily basis for being left-wing Corbynite Jews”.
This is their response to me. Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/jPlF5CwDH0
— Vonny LeClerc (@vonny_bravo) June 17, 2019
The UK’s Labour Party have been embroiled with anti-Semitism accusations for years now over their anti-Israel views and pro-Palestine positions. This bizarre twitter story may add fuel to the fire.
