SAN FRANCISCO – Twitter said it was suspending on Monday Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene He left his service for 12 hours after posting messages that violated his policy against sharing misleading information about the coronavirus.
Georgia Republican Ms. Greene has been an outspoken opponent of vaccines and masks as tools to contain the pandemic. In his tweets on Sunday and Monday, he argued that Covid-19 is not dangerous for people under 65 who are not obese and said there should be no need for a vaccine.
But coronavirus cases are on the rise and it’s highly contagious Delta variant Federal health officials said this month they account for more than half of new infections in the United States. New cases rise in Ms. Greene’s hometown, Georgia 193 percent in the last two weeks.
Twitter said Ms. Greene’s tweets were false information and banned her from the service until Tuesday. “We started enforcement proceedings regarding the account” @mtgreenee for violations of the Twitter Rules, especially Covid-19 misleading information policy” said a Twitter spokesperson. The company also added labels to Ms. Greene’s posts about vaccines, which she described as “misleading” and pointing to information about the safety of vaccines.
A spokesperson for Ms. Greene did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Twitter took action after President Biden urged social media companies to do more to combat the spread of vaccine misinformation on their platforms. On Friday, Mr. Biden Facebook was “killing people” “Look, the only epidemic we have is among the unvaccinated and that’s it – and they’re killing people.”
Health officials said his announcement limited weeks of frustration in the White House over the spread of misinformation online that led to vaccine hesitancy.
Bearing the brunt of the criticism, Facebook argued that Mr Biden’s statement was unfounded. “The Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies,” said Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity. blog post Saturday. “The reality is that vaccine acceptance has increased among Facebook users in the US.”
President on Monday softened his criticism, saying that certain users, rather than Facebook, are responsible for spreading false information. Mr Biden added that the company should do more to combat the “crazy misinformation” spreading on its platform, rather than take these words as a personal insult.
Twitter has long banned users from sharing potentially damaging misinformation about the coronavirus. In March, the company launched a policy explaining the penalties for sharing lies about the virus and vaccines.
“We have observed a constant emergence of conspiracy theories, unfounded alarmist rhetoric in research or credible reports, and a wide variety of unconfirmed rumors that are left out of context; communities at risk,” he said. policy Against the sharing of Covid misinformation.
Persons violating this policy are subject to increased penalties, known as strikes, and could face a permanent ban if they repeatedly share false information about the virus. A 12-hour ban, as Ms. Greene experienced, is Twitter’s response to users with two or three strikes. After four strikes, Twitter suspends users for seven days, and after five strikes, Twitter bans the user altogether.
Other Republicans who were removed from Twitter complained that the social media company was censoring them.
In January, Twitter blocked President Donald J. Trump After the company determined that its social media posts played a role in inciting violence during the riot in the US Capitol. Mr Trump, Twitter and Facebook suspended his account, said they censored it and companies need government oversight.
Miss Greene had previously been suspended However, the company said it was an error caused by one of its automated systems to detect spam and abuse.
After her sentence was lifted, Ms Greene tweeted: “Everyone knows it was a LIE and it was not a mistake.
