Twitter bans personal account of U.S. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

January 2, 2022 by editor

Twitter banned the personal account of U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Sunday for multiple violations of its policy on disinformation about COVID-19, according to a company statement.

Greene’s account was permanently suspended under the “strike” system launched by Twitter in March. It uses artificial intelligence to identify messages about the coronavirus that are misleading enough to harm people. Two or three warnings will result in a 12-hour account ban, four warnings will result in a weeklong suspension, and five or more warnings can result in a person being permanently removed from Twitter.

In a statement on messaging app Telegram, Greene called Twitter’s move un-American. She wrote that her account was suspended after tweeting statistics from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a government database that contains unverified raw data.

“Twitter is an enemy of America and cannot handle the truth,” said the Republican. “That’s fine. I’ll show America that we don’t need them and that it’s time to defeat our enemies.”

Twitter had previously suspended the account for periods ranging from 12 hours to a full week.

The ban applies to Greene’s personal account, @mtgreenee, but does not affect her official Twitter account, @RepMTG.

A tweet from Greene posted shortly before her week-long suspension in July claimed the virus is “not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65”.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people under the age of 65 are responsible for nearly 250,000 of U.S. deaths from COVID-19.

Greene called a week earlier suspension a “Communist-style attack on free speech.”