Twitter is not shy about banning the most prominent American politicians. As The New York Times reports, the social network has permanently banned Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account after a fifth “strike” for spreading misinformation about COVID-19. His official account is still active at the time of this writing as it has not broken any Twitter rules.
It is unclear what immediately precipitated the ban. Twitter spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said only that the company had “been clear” that it would be issuing permanent suspensions for “repeated violations” of its COVID-19 misinformation policy.
Greene had faced an escalating series of bans for her inaccurate claims. She falsely claimed in July that COVID-19 was not dangerous unless you were over 65 or obese, and in August poorly maintained vaccines were “failing” against the Delta variant of the new coronavirus. The posts resulted in 12-hour and one-week suspensions, respectively.
In one declaration, Greene said tech companies and Democrats “can’t prevent the truth” and accused Twitter of hypocrisy in its dealings with Democrats, calling Twitter an “enemy of America.” However, she did not signal any intention to challenge the ban and only said “we don’t need it”.
The crackdown comes just under a year after Twitter permanently banned former President Trump and reflects the social media giant’s less lenient attitude towards politicians over the past year – it’s willing to ban people. officials for violation rather than applying warning labels and avoiding direct action. And while banning targets like Trump may start their own social networks or switch to do-it-all alternatives, there’s no doubt they’ll lose some influence online if they get kicked out of mainstream platforms.
