Twitter Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene, Again

Image credit: US Senate

Third suspension from Twitter for Republican far-right conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, who tweeted misinformation about Covid vaccines

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s account has been suspended by Twitter for a week, after she once again violated the platform’s policies, for a second time in the space of a month.

Trump supporter Greene is a believer of QAnon and other conspiracy theories, and has previously called for the execution of Democratic officials. Earlier this year she blamed jews for the space lasers that she said had started damaging wildfires in the United States.

Her controversial tweets have breach Twitter’s policies on at least two seperate occasions for misleading information about Coronavirus, causing Twitter to suspend her account for 12 hours each time.

Misleading tweets

But now her account has been suspended for a week and placed into read-only mode, after she tweeted that Covid-19 vaccines were failing.

Greene has been an outspoken critic of vaccines and the use of masks. Last week she was filmed telling an audience in the US to exercise their second amendment rights (i.e. carry guns) if any government official or nurse came to their house offering vaccines.

Now Greene falsely claimed in a Monday tweet that Covid-19 vaccines are “failing.”

In the offending tweet, Greene said the US Food and Drug Administration “should not approve the Covid vaccines.”

She also falsely claimed vaccines are “failing” and that they are ineffective in reducing the virus’s spread, prompting Twitter to label the tweet misleading and stop Greene from tweeting for one week.

The tweet, a Twitter spokesperson told CNN, “was labeled in line with our Covid-19 misleading information policy. The account will be in read-only mode for a week due to repeated violations of the Twitter Rules.”

Previous suspensions

This seems to be the third strike for Greene and is the toughest penalty imposed on her so far, prompting speculation that a permanent suspension could be on the cards.

Twitter had suspended her account for 12 hours in January this year, for sharing conspiracy theories about the Georgia Senate runoff elections, CNN reported.

Then in late July, Twitter suspended Greene again for 12 hours for sharing misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines.

Greene had also been temporarily suspended in March but was soon reinstated after Twitter said its automated systems had acted in error.

According to Twitter’s Covid-19 misinformation policy, users can receive a one-week suspension if they violate that policy four times.

Violating the Covid-19 policy five or more times can result in a permanent ban, CNN reported.

Last month Greene apologised for likening coronavirus mask rules to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany.

Trump ban

It seems therefore that Greene could be on the way to a permanent ban, just like former President Donald Trump.

Twitter permanently banned Trump from its platform in January for his role in inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol building on Wednesday 6 January, which resulted in the deaths of five people (including one police officer who was beaten to death).

Trump lashed out at Facebook and other social networking platforms over his continued ban from their services, calling the bans a “total disgrace and an embarrassment to our country”.

In May Twitter suspended an account for sharing the posts from Donald Trump’s short-lived communications website. Members of Trump’s team had created user accounts to share Trump’s viewpoints.

Donald Trump in June closed down the communications or blog website that he launched to publish content ‘straight from the desk’ of the former president of the United States.