House

Twitter permanently suspends Greene’s account over COVID-19 misinformation

by Caroline Vakil - 01/02/22 10:08 AM ET

Twitter said on Sunday it permanently suspended the personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) over the social media platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy.

The social network said in a statement that it took the action after “repeated violations” of the policy.

“We permanently suspended the account you referenced (@mtgreenee) for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy. We’ve been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told The Hill in a statement.

As of Sunday morning, Greene’s congressional account was still up.

In response to the suspension, Greene insisted in a statement published on Telegram that she was telling the truth.

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

Greene previously was suspended by Twitter several times for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy.

In July, she received a 12-hour suspension from Twitter regarding two tweets she posted in which she falsely claimed COVID-19 was “not dangerous” for people who are under the age of 65 or not obese.

In August, her personal account was suspended for a week after she claimed that “these vaccines are failing and do not reduce the spread of the virus & neither do masks.”

The COVID-19 vaccines have proved to be effective against severe infections. The disease is severe and deadly, especially among the elderly and the immunocompromised, and has repeatedly overwhelmed hospitals. More than 820,000 Americans have died from the infectious disease since the start of the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to Twitter’s COVID-19 misleading information policy, tweets that violate those rules would need to do several things: advance claims as facts, be knowingly misleading or inaccurate given existing information available, and have a potential to cause harm.

Twitter’s policy bans users from sharing posts that are obviously misleading about COVID-19, such as the risk of infection or death from COVID-19, official regulations, or the safety of preventative measures.

The COVID-19 misinformation policy for Twitter, which employs a strike system for posts that violate the policy, says that after five or more strikes, the social media user faces permanent suspension of their account.

Updated 12:10 p.m.

Tags COVID-19 Marjorie Taylor Greene Marjorie Taylor Greene Twitter