Twitter bans personal Marjorie Taylor Greene account for COVID-19 misinfo

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SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter on Sunday banned the personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for multiple violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy, according to a statement from the company.

FILE – Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., listens during a news conference about the treatment of people being held in the District of Columbia jail who are charged with crimes in the Jan. 6 insurrection, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021. Twitter on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022, banned the personal account of Greene for multiple violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy, according to a statement from the company. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

© Provided by Boston Herald FILE – Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., listens during a news conference about the treatment of people being held in the District of Columbia jail who are charged with crimes in the Jan. 6 insurrection, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021. Twitter on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022, banned the personal account of Greene for multiple violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy, according to a statement from the company. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)In a statement on the messaging app Telegram, Greene blasted Twitter’s move as un-American. She wrote that her account was suspended after tweeting statistics from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a government database which includes unverified raw data.

“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.”

The Georgia Republican’s account was permanently suspended under the “strike” system Twitter launched in March, which uses artificial intelligence to identify posts about the coronavirus that are misleading enough to cause harm to people. Two or three strikes earn a 12-hour account lock; four strikes prompt a weeklong suspension, and five or more strikes can get someone permanently removed from Twitter.

In July, Twitter suspended Greene for a week after President Biden urged tech companies to take stronger action against bogus vaccine claims that are “killing people.” Twitter has defended its efforts to keep dangerous misinformation about COVID-19 off its site, saying it has removed thousands of tweets and challenged millions of accounts worldwide.

Among Greene’s final tweets was one Saturday that falsely referenced “extremely high amounts of covid vaccine deaths,” according to her Telegram account, which appears to mirror her now-banned Twitter feed when compared with Greene tweets stored in the Internet Archive.

The first-term representative has repeatedly stirred controversy over inflammatory commentary.

On social media, she has voiced support for racist views, unfounded QAnon pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theories such as the lie that the 2020 election was stolen and calls for violence against Democratic politicians, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Last February, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called her embrace of conspiracy theories and “loony lies” a “cancer for the Republican Party.”

Twitter had previously suspended Greene’s personal 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.

Twitter bans personal Marjorie Taylor Greene account for COVID-19 misinfo (msn.com)