A day after being banned by Twitter for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday said Facebook had suspended her account for 24 hours.
The fringe Republican, who has previously shared QAnon conspiracy theories and suggested that California wildfires were caused by Jewish space lasers, posted a statement on GETTR, a conservative social media platform.
‘Facebook has joined Twitter in censoring me,’ she said.
‘This is beyond censorship of speech.
‘I’m an elected Member of Congress representing over 700,000 US tax paying citizens and I represent their voices, values, defend their freedoms, and protect the Constitution.’
A day earlier she condemned Twitter as ‘an enemy to America’ for blocking her personal account, although her work account is reportedly unaffected.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene revealed on Monday that she had been suspended by Facebook for 24 hours a day after Twitter said she was banned permanently for violating its rules
Greene railed against social media companies for ‘censoring’ her, after her unfounded claims of ‘extremely high amounts of COVID vaccine deaths’ led to her accounts being suspended
On her GETTR account she shared what appeared to be a Facebook screenshot.
‘You can’t post or comment for 24 hours. This is because you previously posted something that didn’t follow our Community Standards,’ it said.
Facebook’s intervention comes after Greene posted the same message to both platforms, claiming reports of injury or death among COVID-19 vaccine recipients were evidence of the federal government ignoring ‘extremely high amounts of COVID vaccine deaths.’
On GETTR, she said there had been ‘zero investigation’ into the deaths.
‘Who appointed Twitter and Facebook to be the authorities of information and misinformation?’ she asked.
‘When Big Tech decides what political speech of elected members is accepted and what’s not then they are working against our government and against the interest of our people.’
There is no evidence of that coronavirus vaccines cause widespread, serious side-effects.
Instead, Greene included with her tweet a chart of anecdotal, unverified reports of side-effects from a monitoring system operated by the Food and Drug Administration – which experts said was misleading.
‘A post violated our policies and we have removed it; but removing her account for this violation is beyond the scope of our policies,’ said a Meta spokesperson.
Greene is among a new breed of Republicans who rose to power under former President Donald Trump, aping his bombastic style and disregard for facts.
In the past year social media companies have stepped up their policing of misinformation that it believes could be harmful to public health in light of the pandemic.
Trump himself was banned from Twitter last year over what it said was the threat of ‘further incitement of violence’ after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol last Jan. 6.
Despite her ban, Greene has found other platforms from which to rail against Big Tech.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, pictured center, has had her personal Twitter account suspended for repeatedly sharing COVID misinformation
Greene responded to the ban with a message on the encrypted messaging app Telegram from her communications director Nick Dyer
Greene’s personal account was suspended on Sunday, as seen in this grab, after Twitter previously said
But her official work account remains live. She has not tweeted from it since December 19
This compilation of Greene’s final tweets railing against COVID measures appear to be what earned her her fifth strike and permanent ban from Twitter
‘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,’ she said on Sunday in a statement on the encrypted messaging app Telegram sent to the media by her communications director, Nick Dyer, after her ban was imposed.
Greene added: ‘Social media platforms can’t stop the truth from being spread far and wide. Big Tech can’t stop the truth. Communist Democrats can’t stop the truth.
‘I stand with the truth and the people. We will overcome!’
Twitter’s rules allow someone to appeal if they believe the account was suspended in error.
This is the fifth strike for Greene, who was last suspended in August for saying that vaccines were ‘failing’ to reduce the spread of COVID and that the FDA shouldn’t have approved them.
She got her third strike in July after tweeting that COVID wasn’t dangerous. She was also suspended in January, days after the Capitol riot, for tweets echoing conspiracy theories about voter fraud in her home state of Georgia.
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.
A Twitter spokesperson said: ‘We permanently suspended @mtrgreene for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy. We’ve been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy.’
In a statement released by her office, Greene said she was suspended for sharing a tweet citing numbers from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a self-reporting tool for vaccine side effects managed by the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration.
Greene’s suspension comes almost a year after Donald Trump was permanently suspended days after the January 6 riot.
In a lengthy Twitter thread on Saturday, she posted a graph showing a reported 18,000 deaths from the COVID-19 vaccines, according to VAERS data.
‘Before Covid, Reported deaths from vaccines were taken seriously and dangerous vaccines were stopped. After Covid, Extremely high amounts of covid vaccine deaths are ignored and government forced vaccine mandates increase,’ she said.
VAERS allows anyone to report side effects after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. Government health official have warned that the data is being misused and misinterpreted, given that anyone is able to submit a report.
Reports of side effects or deaths caused by the COVID-19 vaccine on VAERS do not prove that negative outcomes were related to the vaccine itself.
Last month, Greene, 47, compared COVID to cancer in a four tweet thread calling for Americans to take a more laid back attitude to the virus.
‘Every single year more than 600,000 people in the US die from cancer. In 2021, an estimated 608,570 people will die of cancer in the United States. The country has never once shut down. Not a single school has closed.
‘And every year, over 600,000 people, of all ages and all races, will continue to die from cancer.
‘Since #COVID19 tracking has started, 780,000+ people have died in 22 mo in the US, but more than 1 million still died of cancer.
‘More have died in 2021 from covid than 2020 in spite of Gov mandated widespread vaccines, mass public masking, & trillions spent.
‘Covid predominately targets oatbese & older people,’ Greene added, insisting that ‘it’s time to take a different approach based on the facts’ and ‘stop the politically driven mass hysteria.’
Greene, 47, has faced repeated criticism over her use of social media to spread misinformation
Greene tweeted in August that the FDA should not approve the COVID vaccines because there were ‘too many reports’ of breakthrough cases. Twitter marked the tweet misleading and blocked users from interacting with it
Twitter has a five-strike policy for users who spread COVID-19 misinformation. The latest strike appears to have been her last
Greene has also taken repeated aim at White House COVID tsar Dr Anthony Fauci, and even shared snaps of herself wearing a face mask emblazoned with the words ‘Fire Fauci.’
When her account was suspended in August 2021, a Twitter spokesperson said: ‘The account will be in read-only mode for a week due to repeated violations of the Twitter rules.’
The social media website’s misinformation policy states that violating its COVID guidelines five times could result in a permanent ban, according to the Arizona Republic.
In 2017, she called the internet-born conspiracy theory QAnon, whose believers follow the words of an alleged government insider nicknamed Q, a ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out,’ according to the Tampa Bay Times.
In February 2021, she said in a speech on the House floor that she stopped believing in the conspiracy theory once she found ‘misinformation, lies, things that were not true’ in QAnon posts.
On Sunday, the first-term congresswoman pointed the finger at her colleagues, suggesting Twitter has a double standard.
‘Maxine Waters can go to the streets and threaten violence on Twitter, Kamala and Ilhan can bail out Black Lives Matter terrorists on Twitter, CNN and the rest of the Democrat Propaganda Media can spread Russia collusion lies, and just yesterday the Chief spokesman for terrorist IRGC can tweet mourning Soleimani, but I get suspended for tweeting VAERS statistics,’ she said.
Statistics from the self-reporting vaccine side effect database are often cited by conservative commentators like Tucker Carlson to downplay the effectiveness of vaccines.
Last week, Greene criticized the national College Republicans group for tweeting out a message wishing people a Happy Kwanzaa
Last week, Greene criticized the national College Republicans group for tweeting out a message wishing people a Happy Kwanzaa.
The secular festival of African American culture is celebrated each year from December 26 to January 1.
‘Stop. It’s a fake religion created by a psychopath,’ Greene wrote back on Twitter. ‘You aren’t bringing in new voters, you are turning them away. People are tired of pandering and BS.’
Source: dailymail
