Twitter permanently bans Marjorie Taylor Greene account for COVID misinformation
The Georgia Republican's personal account was banned for repeated violations of Twitter's policies.
The personal Twitter account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been permanently suspended.
Twitter has permanently suspended the personal account of US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene after repeated violations of its policies prohibiting dissemination of COVID-19 misinformation, the company said Sunday.
The fifth strike that the Georgia Republican received Sunday means the account won't be reinstated, according to Twitter's rules. The account was suspended, for example, in July for incorrectly stating who is threatened by the virus.
"We've been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy," Twitter spokesperson Katie Rosborough said in a statement.
Greene's official congressional account, @RepMTG, doesn't appear to be violating Twitter's rules and remains active.
Greene responded to the suspension in posts on Gettr, a social media site run by a senior adviser to former President Donald Trump, and called Twitter an "enemy to America." On Monday, Greene said that Facebook had also blocked her from posting or commenting for 24 hours for violating the social network's community standards.
A spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, confirmed that the social network had removed one of Greene's posts that violated its polices.
Twitter's rules have long banned misinformation about the coronavirus, especially tweets containing false information that could lead people to do harm to themselves. In March, the company announced it would begin labeling any tweets that may contain misleading information about the COVID-19 vaccines.
Twitter began using the "strike" system in July, saying that two or three strikes earn users a 12-hour account lock, four strikes gets a weeklong account lock and five or more results in a permanent suspension from the social media site. Having a tweet deleted for being misleading earns users two strikes; being labeled counts as one strike.
Greene's suspension from Twitter comes as daily coronavirus cases in the US hit a record high last week, with a seven-day moving average from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing more than 316,000 new infections per day. The previous peak came nearly a year ago, in January.
To date, there have been 289 million infections globally, resulting in 5.4 million deaths.
Greene couldn't immediately be reached for comment.