Twitter permanently suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene's account for spreading COVID-19 misinformation
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
Twitter has permanently suspended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal account for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.
"We permanently suspended Marjorie Taylor Greene for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy," Twitter said in a statement, as first reported by CNN's Donie O'Sullivan. "We've been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy."
Twitter in March said it would permanently suspend accounts that repeatedly post COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
The official representative account for Greene, a freshman Republican from Georgia, remains active on Twitter.
Greene responded to Twitter's decision on GETTR, the conservative social media platform launched by Jason Miller, who was the chief spokesman for former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and a senior advisor for the former president's 2020 campaign.
"When Maxine Waters can go to the streets and threaten violence on Twitter, Kamala and Ilhan can bail out rioters on Twitter, and Chief spokesman for terrorist IRGC can tweet mourning Soleimani but I get suspended for tweeting VAERS statistics, Twitter is an enemy to America and can't handle the truth. That's fine, I'll show America we don't need them and it's time to defeat our enemies," Greene wrote.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California has repeatedly been the target of criticism by conservatives for comments from 2018 where she encouraged people to "push back" on members of the Trump administration in public and "tell them they're not welcome anymore."
Greene also made an unsubstantiated connection concerning Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and their support of the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a nonprofit organization that assists low-income individuals who need money for bail. Some conservatives have equated support of the Fund to a desire to bail out rioters who destroyed property after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis last year.
Greene's suspension from Twitter comes nearly a year after the social media platform permanently suspended Trump from accessing his account, citing the possibility of further incitement of violence following the deadly January 6 siege of the Capitol by Trump supporters.
Since her election to the House, Greene has been become one of the most polarizing politicians on Capitol Hill, reveling in the sort of partisan combat that defined the Trump presidency.
Last February, only weeks after assuming office, Greene was stripped of her committee assignments, an extraordinary move taken by the Democratic-controlled House after the congresswoman promoted a range of conspiracy theories and endorsed political violence on social media.
She has continued to attract attention for her extreme rhetoric and antics; a confrontation that Greene initiated with Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri led the Democratic congresswoman to switch Capitol Hill offices to escape the immediate orbit the Georgia Republican.
In May, Greene compared mask mandates to the Holocaust and apologized for her comments the next month, but then compared President Joe Biden's calls to vaccinate Americans against the coronavirus to the Nazi regime.
"Biden pushing a vaccine that is NOT FDA approved shows covid is a political tool used to control people," she tweeted in July. "People have a choice, they don't need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations. You can't force people to be part of the human experiment."
Since the congresswoman made her aforementioned statement, the Food and Drug Administration has issued full approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Last month, The New York Times reported that Greene and Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia were collectively fined over $100,000 for refusing to adhere to the House's mask rules set by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
