Twitter restores Sen. Steve Daines’s account after Musk weighs in

Twitter restored Sen. Steve Daines’s (R-Mont.) account on Tuesday afternoon after it was suspended earlier in the day for what the company said was a violation of its “media policy.”

“I’m free! Thanks, @elonmusk,” Daines tweeted. 

The account was restored shortly after Twitter CEO Elon Musk said the suspension was “being fixed.”

The suspension apparently happened after Daines’s account displayed an image of him and his wife hunting as the profile picture, prompting an outcry from Republicans. 

On Tuesday morning the account for the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman did not show his profile avatar or background picture. In addition, a number of posts going back days were unavailable and slew of posts going back as far as last Friday showed a statement that read, “@SteveDaines’s account is temporarily unavailable because it violates the Twitter Media Policy.”

“This is being fixed,” Musk said in a tweet. “Policy against showing blood in profile pic is being amended to ‘clearly showing blood without clicking on the profile pic’. The intent is to avoid people being forced to see gruesome profile pics.”

“Going forward, Twitter will be broadly accepting of different values, rather than trying to impose its own specific values on the world,” Musk added. 

Republicans rallied around Daines on Twitter earlier in the day and defended the Montana Republican.

“This is the family photo that got @SteveDaines put in twitter jail. Stop censoring our Montana way of life!  Great shot, Cindy!” tweeted Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), who included a photo of Daines and his wife hunting. 

“Twitter has ridiculously suspended Sen. @SteveDaines because his profile picture is of him and his wife hunting…What a disgrace!” said Donald Trump Jr. in a post on Twitter.