Twitter Permanently Bans Marjorie Taylor Greene For Repeated Covid-19 Misinformation

Topline

Twitter announced Sunday it has permanently suspended the personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) for violating the platform’s Covid-19 misinformation policies, clamping down after numerous warnings to the outspoken politician over her repeated and spurious claims about the pandemic and vaccines.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account was permanently suspended from twitter.

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Key Facts

In a statement to Forbes, Twitter said it “permanently suspended” Greene’s personal account (@mtgreenee) for “repeated violations” of its Covid-19 misinformation policies.

The platform—which operates a five-strike system with escalating punishments for each infraction of the misinformation policies—confirmed Greene received her fifth strike, which results in permanent suspension.

While it is unclear precisely what tweet prompted Greene’s ban—the account is now blank—the congresswoman reportedly promoted a conspiracy that the federal government is ignoring “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths,” based on a database of reported vaccine side effects (VAERS), according to a screenshot seen by the Independent.

Experts warn the VAERS database, which vaccine skeptics frequently and misleadingly use to question vaccine safety, is an unreliable measurement of vaccine safety as it is based on unverified and voluntary public reports that may be incomplete, inaccurate or unrelated to the vaccine in question.

Greene previously received previous strikes for posts falsely claiming coronavirus vaccines were “failing” and that Covid-19 is only dangerous to the obese or elderly.

Twitter said Greene’s Congressional account (@RepMTG) will remain active as tweets from it have not violated the platform’s rules.

Crucial Quote

In a rebuttal on messaging platform Telegram, Greene decried an apparent double standard used to assess her content and that of other politicians and figures on Twitter, and said Twitter “is an enemy to America and can’t handle the truth.”

Key Background

Throughout the pandemic, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have faced calls to do more to stem the relentless tide of misinformation circulating online. While the platforms were long known to remove posts and ban users who shared misinformation and conspiracies, many accused them of not being transparent enough about the scale of the problem. Twitter stepped up efforts to tackle Covid-19 misinformation in March, explaining some of its policies, and added warning labels to posts containing misinformation.

Tangent

Greene’s suspension comes almost a year after Twitter banned former President Donald Trump following the January 6 insurrection. The platform said Trump’s tweets risked inciting further violence and supported those who falsely believed he won the presidential election.

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