Greene Compares Twitter Time-Out To Communist Censorship

GEORGIA — Comparing her temporary Twitter ban to Chinese censorship, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene returned to social media late Tuesday morning after a 12-hour ban for posting misleading information about COVID-19.

“American social media company Twitter banned me for 12 hrs, censoring me & violating my freedom of speech,” the first-term congresswoman posted at about 9:30 a.m. “You know who else silences, censors and bans people they don’t like and want heard. Communist China. Communism is not good @Twitter Save America Stop Communism!”

American social media company Twitter banned me for 12 hrs, censoring me, & violating my freedom of speech.

You know who else silences, censors, and bans people they don’t like and want heard.

Communist China

Communism is not good @Twitter

Save America Stop Communism!
— Marjorie Taylor Greene (@mtgreenee) July 20, 2021

Greene earned a time-out from Twitter — her second this year — for two posts the social-media giant labeled as misleading.

On Sunday, Greene re-tweeted a comment by Dr. David Samadi, a urologist and contributor to the conservative Newsmax cable channel, that 47 percent of new COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom are people who’ve received the vaccination.

“This is why no entity should force NON-FDA approved vaccines or masks,” Greene wrote in response.

This is why no entity should force NON-FDA approved vaccines or masks.

Instead help people protect their health by defeating obesity, which will protect them from covid complications & death, and many other health problems.

We should invest in health, not human experimentation. https://t.co/I4zHqwabhi
— Marjorie Taylor Greene (@mtgreenee) July 19, 2021

While it is true that almost half of Britain’s new COVID cases were vaccinated, Samadi failed to mention research showed that those who’d been vaccinated “showed fewer, milder symptoms” than those who hadn’t received the shot. The research was cited by Tim Spector, an epidemiologist from King’s College London, and reported Saturday by Business Insider.

Greene’s second tweet on Monday appeared to not even quote her source of misinformation correctly. Re-tweeting a comment by GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky that he’d heard some military officers would sooner retire or resign than be forced to receive vaccinations, Greene reported “6,000 vax related deaths” without citing a source.

The controversial #COVID19 vaccines should not be forced on our military for a virus that is not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65.

With 6,000 vax related deaths and many concerning side effects reported, the vax should be a choice not a mandate for everyone. https://t.co/JhYg3acrrK
— Marjorie Taylor Greene (@mtgreenee) July 19, 2021

Greene’s fake statistic appears to be inspired by a since-debunked Instagram post reporting a “6000% Increase in Reported Vaccine Deaths” from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021. Drawn from a report by Health Impact News — a site identified by the Columbia Journalism Review as “junk science” — the statistic was debunked by PolitiFact as a “misinterpretation” of statistics and false.

“There is no evidence linking these deaths to vaccines,” PolitiFact posted in April to its website.

According to The New York Times, new cases of COVID-19 in Georgia have increased by 193 percent over the last two weeks.

Twitter suspended Greene after President Joe Biden urged tech companies to take stronger action against bogus claims about vaccines that are “killing people.” Twitter has defended its efforts to keep dangerous misinformation about COVID-19 off its site, saying it has removed thousands of tweets and challenged millions of accounts worldwide.

Greene appears to have been disciplined under the “strike” system Twitter launched in March, using a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify content about the coronavirus that is misleading enough to cause harm to people. Two or three strikes earn a 12-hour account lock; four strikes prompt a weeklong suspension, and five or more strikes can get someone permanently removed from Twitter.

“We took enforcement action on the account @mtgreenee for violations of the Twitter Rules, specifically the Covid-19 misleading information policy,” the company said in an email to the Associated Press.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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