Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has now been suspended from posting or commenting on Facebook for 24 hours, a move that she announced on early Monday: the day after her personal account was permanently removed from Twitter for misinformation about COVID-19. Predictably, Greene flipped out after the Facebook move — although she had to post her remarks on GETTR, a right-wing social media platform where she has established a presence.
Twitter has permanently banned Georgia Republican conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene's account "for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 2, 2022
As Greene angrily put it:
‘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… Who appointed Twitter and Facebook to be the authorities of information and misinformation? 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.’
Marjorie Taylor Greene Permanently Suspended From Twitter for Pushing Covid Lies:
Good bye and good riddance. Do her official account next.
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) January 2, 2022
What happened to the supposed Republican interest in protecting the rights of private companies? Neither Twitter nor Facebook are government interests, and part of the wonder of the internet is that Greene can just… go elsewhere. She could probably easily get a spot on a Fox broadcast, and she’s clearly not struggling to get her message out — on GETTR, she has over half a million followers, and her allies within the GOP include prominent names like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and former President Trump himself. And yet, the conservative victim complex — as personified by Greene — continues onward. These people so often seem so much more concerned with their petty squabbles than in turning their attention to the reality unfolding around them.
A day after Twitter permanently suspended her personal account, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene R-GA says Facebook has suspended her for 24 hours. pic.twitter.com/9HtnMYYxoN
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) January 3, 2022
According to Greene’s ranting, at issue is her promotion of claims regarding the lack of safety of COVID-19 vaccines. She apparently cited the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which lists deaths that have been recorded after patients received the COVID-19 vaccine. The problem is that deaths after these shots are required to be reported, no matter if there’s no substantive evidence at all that links the death to the vaccine. As Reuters explains, “Healthcare providers are required to report any death after vaccination to VAERS even if there is no indication it was caused by the vaccine, and reported incidents are not evidence of a causal link.” The numbers of the VAERS system do not reflect a total number of deaths from vaccines. Greene claimed that there “has been ZERO investigation into reported Covid deaths from government mandated #covid vaccines,” which would appear to be false.
JUST IN: Twitter confirms to NPR that it has banned Marjorie Taylor Greene's account "for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy."
— NPR (@NPR) January 2, 2022
