Twitter Inc. temporarily suspended the account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday night for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy.
The Georgia Republican, who has touted conspiracy theories and has been an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccines, will be blocked from tweeting for 12 hours. A Twitter
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spokesperson cited “violations of the Twitter rules, specifically the COVID-19 misleading information policy.”
In tweets Sunday and Monday, Greene falsely claimed that COVID-19 is not dangerous for people under 65 who are not obese and likened vaccinations to “human experimentation.” Both tweets remained public as of Monday night, but had been labeled as “misleading” by Twitter. Other users cannot reply to them or retweet them, though the tweets can be quote-tweeted.
Twitter announced a crackdown against misinformation earlier this year, with a “strike” system put in place to eventually ban accounts that repeatedly violate its rules. This was apparently Greene’s second strike; five strikes would merit a permanent ban.
In recent days, the Biden administration has applied public pressure on social-media companies to do more to reduce the spread of vaccine misinformation on their platforms as vaccination rates have decreased and new coronavirus cases have surged around the country.
