Twitter Permanently Suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene's Account - 01/02/2022
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The social media service said the Republican congresswoman had violated its policy on coronavirus misinformation.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, at an event last month with another Republican, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times
By Davey Alba
Jan. 2, 2022
Twitter on Sunday permanently suspended the personal account of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia, after the company said she had violated its Covid-19 misinformation policies.
Twitter suspended Ms. Greene's account after she tweeted on Saturday, falsely, about "extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths." She included a misleading chart that pulled information from a government database of unverified raw data called the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, a decades-old system that relies on self-reported cases from patients and health care providers.
Twitter said that Ms. Greene had a fifth "strike," which meant that her account will not be restored. The company had issued her a fourth strike in August after she falsely posted that the vaccines were "failing." Ms. Greene was given a third strike less than a month before that when she had tweeted that Covid-19 was not dangerous and that vaccines should not be mandated.
Ms. Greene's official Congressional account, @RepMTG, remains active because tweets from that account did not violate the service's rules.
"We've been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy," Katie Rosborough, a Twitter spokeswoman, said in a statement. The company allows accounts to submit an appeal and will potentially reverse the suspension if the violating post is proven to be factual.
The Spread of Misinformation and Falsehoods
On the alternative social messaging platform Telegram, Ms. Greene said that Twitter "is an enemy to America and can't handle the truth."
Her suspension comes as coronavirus cases have surged again in the United States from the highly infectious Omicron variant. New York State recorded over 85,000 new coronavirus cases on the last day of 2021, the highest one-day total in the state since the pandemic began, officials announced on Saturday.
Twitter has long banned users from sharing misinformation that could lead to harm. In rare cases, the company has permanently banned high-profile accounts, including the account of former President Donald J. Trump, over a risk of "further incitement of violence" after a mob of Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol last Jan. 6.
There is currently no evidence of widespread major side effects from the coronavirus vaccines. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Johnson & Johnson's vaccine could trigger a rare blood clotting disorder now linked to dozens of cases and at least nine deaths in the United States in the past year. The agency recommended using other approved vaccines instead.
The VAERS database, which is managed by the Food and Drug Administration and the C.D.C., has been cited in many coronavirus falsehoods to push the idea that side effects from the Covid-19 vaccines have been underreported.
A spokeswoman for the F.D.A. declined to comment, but pointed to an overview of the VAERS database on the F.D.A.'s website that said VAERS reports "generally cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness."
In March, Twitter introduced a policy that explained the penalties for sharing lies about the virus and vaccines. People who violate that policy are subject to escalating punishments known as strikes and could face a permanent ban if they repeatedly share misinformation about the virus.
Ms. Greene won the primary election for Georgia's 14th Congressional District in August 2020, after rising to prominence by posting unabashed support for President Trump and for QAnon, a movement tied to the baseless conspiracy theory that a group of global liberal elites run a child sex ring that Mr. Trump would stop.
Ms. Greene repeatedly posted the QAnon slogan on Facebook and Twitter and had previously called "Q" — the anonymous online account that set off the QAnon conspiracy movement — a "patriot" who was "worth listening to." Last year, Ms. Greene heavily promoted the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Mr. Trump, tweeting in January that there was "MASS voter fraud on a scale that should terrify every American regardless of political party."
But it was Ms. Greene's false proclamations about the coronavirus, including opposing vaccines and masks as tools to curb the pandemic, that finally got her suspended from Twitter. In July, Ms. Greene argued that Covid-19 was not dangerous for people unless they were obese or over age 65, and said vaccines should not be required.
In August, Ms. Greene said on Twitter, "The F.D.A. should not approve the covid vaccines." She said that there were too many reports of infection and the spread of the coronavirus among vaccinated people, and that the vaccines were "failing" and "do not reduce the spread of the virus & neither do masks."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's current guidance states, "Covid-19 vaccines are effective against severe disease and death."
Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which published research on the dozen most prominent social media influencers spreading misinformation about vaccines, said it suited Ms. Greene to portray her suspension as part of a pattern of moves by Twitter to censor conservatives.
"In fact, it is for the banal reason that she's a superspreader of lies" that Ms. Greene was suspended, Mr. Ahmed said.
He also criticized Twitter for not doing more to be consistent in its suspensions of high-profile users who post misinformation. "While the suspension of Representative Greene's account for propagating deadly disinformation appears to be a valid enforcement of stated rules, it is the piecemeal enforcement that lends itself to being perceived as political," Mr. Ahmed said.
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For those who are still spreading gross misinformation about why Twitter and Facebook banned Marjorie Trailer Greene.
A year old story that is no longer viable. She isn't banned from Twitter NOR is she banned on Facebook. Try another tree. You presently are barking up the wrong one.
Well said!
No, this is to counter gross misinformation still being spread by rightwingers about why Greene was suspended in the first place.
Here is hoping we finally found the bottom of the barrel, but something tells me that is wishful thinking.
You said "permanently". THAT is gross misinformation.
He better stay away from George when he's coked up out of his mind. He might make a move.
Well to be fair, the word 'permanently' is in the article title from the NY Times. It's beyond ridiculous that someone would use an article that is over a year old and incorrect as well as the seed of a thread, but here we are.
I dont think the point of the article is difficult to grasp. At the time it was decided that Greene was a menace to the national dialogue with her lying, conspiracy mongering and general insanity. She still is, whether a social media company decided to show her leniency at some point or not.
I honestly have no idea why people try to defend her. She is indefensible.
I'm not about to defend her. IMO she should not have been elected to Congress but her constituents obviously held other ideas. But if you're going to deride someone for lying, conspiracy mongering and general insanity you will have a very big list out of Washington. There are so many that fit that bill starting with the current occupant of the Oval Office. Now clearing all that out of Washington may not however be the worst of ideas....
No one here is defending her. Just pointing out the inaccuracy of the story.
She still has the right to free speech, even if she's a lunatic Everyone has the right to ignore her ramblings.
This country, and overwhelmingly people on the political right, is awash in conspiracy theories. It is eating away at the social fabric of our nation.
The Sudden Rise of the ‘Died Suddenly’ COVID Conspiracy …
Web 23 hours ago · Died Suddenly has been viewed nearly 20 million times and cheered on by far-right personalities such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Candace Owens. It was released by the Stew Peters Network, whose ...
That is the headline of a copyrighted story from the NYT.
It cannot be modified.
Who said anything about modifying the headline? JBB is pushing and using this as some sort of gotcha when he, and the times story, are behind the "Times".
It is laughable that you would even think of comparing Joe Biden to Marjorie Taylor Greene.
It's even more laughable that you don't. How many years of lying does Joe have compared to MTG? How many other politicians from both parties have years of lying that greatly outreach MTG? If you refuse to compare apples to apples then all one can understand is your partisanship is getting in the way.
Joe's a lot older, too, so yeah he has more years than her
That’s what cracks me up about many who are bagging on Santos for lying right now.
Biden has been lying for 50+ years and they still voted for him.
Hilarious
We see the denial crowd is out on this seed. Marjorie Taylor Greene does not belong in Congress, at all, let alone serving on a committee investigating a topic she was publicly spreading misinformation about.
Every day , every fucking day, we have to deal with these lunatics. I feel sorry for our country and especially the young people who may never know anything better.
Contrary to what some want to believe the fact that she was voted in shows she does belong in congress.
People voted Trump into the presidency too. Look where that got us. Adolph Hitler was voted into the top position in the German government. Did he "belong" there?
The people that voted him in seemed to think so.
And here, ladies and gentlemen, we see the left holding up a polished turd full of misinformation and lies.
Prove it. LOL.
Time for you to back something up.
No need. As pointed out at 1.1 above, the fact that she is permanently suspended is bullshit. Period.
I dont know about you, but I can read a story from a year ago and realize it pertains to what was occurring at that time.
"Permanent " banning from a social media site is a relative term. For example, a new owner may decide to remove the ban, for whatever reason. Its not that complicated.
When did Facebook get a new owner?
Lol .... you be the first to jump on an article like this if for example the lie somehow supported Trump.
Get off your high horse John and get real ....
Its only a lie if an attempt was made to conceal the fact that the article is a year old.
One might assume that people reading the article would realize it is not new, but you guys surprise me all the time.
Yeah well, the sanctimonious propaganda coming from you guys on the left no longer surprises me in the least.
I thought it was new. And that makes me sad because it puts me in the dummy class
It already has (see 1.1). Just because YOU refuse to acknowledge it is not my problem.
I guess it could have been made more clear that the article was old, but this is hardly worth the time it takes to bitch about it.
When I first saw the headline I too wondered if it was something new, but looking at the article it was pretty readily clear that it was not.
No one can actually defend this unAmerican nut case Greene, so they pick away at things such as the headline in this article as a way to distract.
Meh, same can be said for congresspeople on the left fringe.
AOC comes to mind immediately. Her foot hasn’t left her mouth since she was first elected.
"Nunt Uh" is hardly a rebuttal...
Oh look. Somebody else trying to carry the polished turd.
The vaccines work...the masks, not so much. DeSantis took the right steps in Florida to get people's lives back to something resembling normalcy.
Also, the highly restrictive measures in China turned out to be a disaster for them
JBB I think you should take this seed down. I missed the date on when it was published and that's on me. But talking about something that happened a year ago and now she's back on Twitter is confusing and misleading.
I think I know why JBB seeded this. On another article the right wingers are denying that Greene ever was a covid denier. JBB is pointing out that she was kicked off twitter precisely for being a covid denier.
Maybe he should have just posted this article on that seed instead of starting a new one.
If that seed was by one of the NT conservatives, I won't read it, so I missed it. It would have been better if he had just commented on that seed and included this article with a link