Twitter temporarily locks Marjorie Greene’s account after rule violations

200829-Rome-Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican running to represent Georgia’s 14th congressional district, speaks to supporters Saturday morning August 29, 2020 during a political rally at the Rome fairgrounds. Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Credit: Ben Gray

Credit: Ben Gray

200829-Rome-Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican running to represent Georgia’s 14th congressional district, speaks to supporters Saturday morning August 29, 2020 during a political rally at the Rome fairgrounds. Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Marjorie Taylor Greene was prohibited from posting new public messages on her personal Twitter account for 12 hours Sunday. The company said the restrictions were put in place after Greene posted tweets that violated the rules.

“The account referenced has been temporarily locked out for multiple violations of our civic integrity policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told CNN.

Two tweets posted to her personal account Saturday night were flagged as containing misinformation about the election. Greene continues to spread baseless claims that Donald Trump won the presidential election in Georgia and that Georgia’s Republican leaders helped steal the victory from him.

Around that same time, Greene posted a third message that appeared to encourage her followers to participate in protests ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday.

“I encourage all Americans, not just the 75 million people who voted for President Trump, to mobilize and make your voices heard in opposition to these attacks on our liberties,” she wrote.

Greene, who often has been photographed in the company of armed militia members in Georgia, deleted the tweet after it was up for two hours but not before facing criticism for encouraging the type of protests that led to the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol. Twitter and other social media platforms permanently suspended Trump after he encouraged supporters to take part in that day’s demonstrations, which turned violent and deadly.

The Georgia congresswoman sent a statement describing the limitations as a suspension of her account and said that Twitter had done so without explanation. A spokesman for Greene said her team had tried to reach out to the social media company to no avail Sunday.

“If a conservative dares to utter a political opinion that is deemed unapproved by the internet police they are now subject to false accusations of ‘inciting violence’ simply for having a conservative view,” Greene, a Republican from Rome, said in a statement.

Her campaign also used the incident to solicit money from supporters in a separate fundraising email. The temporary limitations did not affect her separate congressional account.

Greene, who was sworn into office earlier this month, is among Trump’s loyalists in Congress.

Even though she has claimed the general election was rigged against him, she was elected to office on the same ballot. Greene voted to seat herself and the other members of the Georgia delegation even after colleagues said it was hypocritical to accept their own victories while falsely claiming the elections were fraudulent and votes were miscounted.

Prior to running for office, Greene was a prominent supporter of the baseless Q-Anon conspiracy theory. She also posted videos on social media that included remarks deemed anti-Semitic, racist and Islamophobic.