Twitter has permanently disabled the personal account of Georgia Rep, and Donald Trump’s fervent supporter, Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) for what the microblogging platform termed as ‘repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy’, with her official government account remaining active and unsuspended.
Rep. Greene drew the ire of the San Francisco, California, United States-based company for constantly posting and sharing articles and statistics relating to the Coronavirus pandemic that has been perceived as misleading and wrong. Her shared statistics reportedly peddled misinformation on the virus, its mode of spread, the efficacy of the vaccines and other posts deemed to have a serious effect on public health.
In a statement by Twitter outlining its COVID-19 policy, the company averred: “We’ve been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy.”
The ban on R-GA is coming after several shorter account locks and warnings on her account, that occurred and were reported throughout the past year 2021, with Greene vehement on her stand, while complaining of violations of her ‘freedom of speech, even though Twitter as a privately owned, operated platform has its explicit and clear rules for users who wished to use the site. Taylor- Greene in a statement akin to that of her political leader, Donald Trump wrote: “Twitter is an enemy to America and can’t handle the truth. That’s fine, I’ll show America we don’t need them and it’s time to defeat our enemies.”
It is not exactly clear if her statement implies that she will stop using what she termed the ‘enemy’ platform as her official Twitter Rep account remains activated and online, though has experienced hiatus in the past week.
Twitter has in recent years been issuing bans to public figures who they feel have violated their rules on inciting violence, publishing false or private information, or spreading false information regarding the pandemic.
It last year permanently disabled the account of former U.S President and Greene’s political leader, Donald Trump for violation of its rules. Trump had reportedly posted some tweets that were found to instigate the Capitol riot and had been warned and sanctioned in the past for posting non-verifiable claims on the COVID-19 pandemic and the US Presidential polls.
Greene, a vociferous supporter of Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that Trump won the last U.S Presidential polls in a landslide victory that was stolen from him while calling for the decertification for the election results in her native Georgia. She was also among a group of Republican legislators who unsuccessfully challenged votes for Biden during the Electoral College vote count. R-GA famously filed articles of impeachment against Biden the day after his inauguration, citing abuse of power.
