Twitter has banned promoted tweets that were being used to push white supremacist messages on the website. The tweets were sent and promoted through the company’s advertising tools by Andrew ‘weev’ Auernheimer, a former president of the trolling group known as the “Gay Nigger Association of America”.

Among the tweets promoted by Auernheimer was one that read: “Whites need to stand up for one another and defend ourselves from violence and discrimination. Our race is dying.” A second promoted tweet read: “White pride, world wide. Do you know the 14 words?” – a reference to the white nationalist credo: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

But a further attempt to promote the first tweet a day later led to a rejection from Twitter, which cited a ban on ads dealing with hate content, sensitive topics and violence.

Auernheimer’s association with white supremacist movements was frequently written off as another form of provocation from the notorious troll, but after serving a jail sentence for his role in hacking AT&T’s iPad billing system, he stepped up his involvement. In October 2014, he gave an interview to white supremacist site Daily Stormer in which he revealed a large chest tattoo of a swastika, and spoke about his history as “a longtime critic of Judaism, black culture, immigration to Western nations, and the media’s constant stream of anti-white propaganda”. The site this week approvingly reported on his promotion of white pride on Twitter.