MyPillow founder/CEO and prominent election liar Mike Lindell tried to start a new Twitter account this week after his previous ban from the platform early last year — and the effort didn’t last long. Twitter rather unequivocally notes in their rules regarding attempts to evade enforcement action such as bans that if “an account has been permanently suspended for severe violations of the Twitter Rules, Twitter reserves the right to also permanently suspend any other account we believe the same account holder or entity may be operating in violation of our earlier suspension, regardless of when the other account was created.” Accordingly, Lindell’s new account was banned in about three and a half hours from his first post on the profile, according to The Daily Beast.
Jan. 6 committee member Adam Kinzinger says on CBS hearings will lay out “what led to January 6, the lies after the election, fundraising, the 187 minutes the president basically sat in the Oval Office” during the Capitol attack.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) May 2, 2022
Lindell told The Daily Beast that “[we] need to melt down the voting machines and turn them into prison bars!” when asked about the suspension. He added that “Jack Dorsey should be first in line for prison!” — although Dorsey, despite his status as a co-founder of Twitter, no longer serves in his previous role of CEO for the company. Notably, Lindell isn’t the only prominent voice on the far-right to recently try and get back on Twitter — longtime Trump ally Roger Stone did the same, and his efforts met a similarly unsuccessful end, as he was promptly re-banned. Lindell and Stone made these moves in the context of the recently announced deal for billionaire Elon Musk to buy Twitter. Musk isn’t in charge yet — and he might not be in charge for awhile — but the prospective change in leadership at Twitter has been celebrated among certain right-wingers. Musk has characterized himself as a free speech advocate, which provides a solution to right-wingers’ imagined problem of their censorship. In reality, right-wing individuals are not systematically censored on mainstream social media platforms on the basis of their conservatism.
New: Oath Keeper member Brian Ulrich pleads guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding on Jan. 6 — the second Oath Keeper to do so after Joshua James, who provided security to Roger Stone.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) April 29, 2022
Notably, right-wing media figures including Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk recently got back on Twitter and appeared to imply that their returns were connected to the Musk deal — although again, it’s not yet finalized, and he’s not in charge. In reality, Carlson and Kirk were suspended from Twitter as long as they left up posts in which they referred to a transgender woman serving in the Biden administration as a man. Twitter required them to delete the posts to return to the platform — and between that point and their recent returns to the site, nothing changed on Twitter’s side. Carlson and Kirk deleted the posts. But on a recent episode of Carlson’s show, an on-screen message read: “Unshackled by Elon Musk… Free speech is restored; @TuckerCarlson back on Twitter.” Kirk, meanwhile, wrote in a Twitter post: “Due to New Management, I’m back on Twitter.” Neither of the men’s returns to Twitter had anything to do with “new management.” As Twitter explained it: “This is not due to a change in our policies, this means the account went through the process to regain access — meaning they deleted the violative Tweet.”
Just in: Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson tells reporters the panel will hold at least 8 public hearings, spread out over the month of June with some in prime time
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) April 28, 2022
