Republican Sen. Mike Lee’s Twitter Account Briefly Suspended

Topline

Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) personal Twitter account was suspended for several hours Wednesday for unspecified violations of the platform’s rules, just weeks after fellow Republican Sen. Steve Daines’ (Mont.) suspension caused new Twitter owner Elon Musk to change the company’s policies.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) speaks during then Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s … [+] Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on October 12, 2020.

Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images

Key Facts

Lee’s personal account—@BasedMikeLee—was down for hours Wednesday before being reinstated at around 2:30 p.m. EST.

The senator’s official Twitter account remained active during the suspension.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes about why it suspended the account, and Lee tweeted shortly after being reinstated that there was “Still no explanation from @Twitter as to what happened.”

The account tweeted several warnings to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida from Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning demanding the release of detained U.S. Navy Lt. Ridge Alkonis, whom a Japanese court sentenced to three years in prison over his role in a deadly 2021 traffic accident.

Lee’s last tweet before being suspended shared an article from conservative media outlet The Federalist defending open debate about American support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, along with the comment: “It’s not exactly a sign of a healthy democratic discourse that it’s virtually impossible to ask a critical question about the United States’ role.”

Crucial Quote

“If you don’t hand him over in the next seven hours, a series of conversations will begin tomorrow to inform Americans of how poorly you’re treating our military personnel—not just Ridge Alkonis, but all 55,000 U.S. forces in Japan,” Lee tweeted just before 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Surprising Fact

Lee’s previous tweets were viewable after his account was reinstated, but he lost all of his roughly 71,500 followers and his following list was wiped to 0. It’s not clear if all his former followers will have to manually re-follow the account or if Twitter will automatically restore them at some point.

Key Background

The suspension sparked outrage from numerous conservatives on Twitter, including Daines, who compared it to his own suspension last month. Daines’ account was briefly taken down after he changed his profile picture to a photo of himself and his wife posing with the carcass of an antelope they had killed on a hunt. The photo—which includes a small blood spattering on the antelope’s leg that is difficult to view without zooming in—triggered a suspension on the grounds of Twitter’s policy against “graphic violence.” Musk tweeted the policy was a flaw that was later “fixed” to only ban accounts clearly showing blood without clicking on the profile pic, stating, “The intent is to avoid people being forced to see gruesome profile pics.”

Tangent

Since buying Twitter last year, Musk has reinstated numerous accounts banned for controversial comments, including profiles belonging to former President Donald Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and the satirical news site Babylon Bee. Musk has repeatedly stated his goal is to make Twitter a haven of free speech on the internet, even though he has also banned several journalists critical of him.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee’s Twitter Account Briefly Suspended—And It’s Not Clear Why