Conspiracy theory-endorsing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was temporarily suspended from Twitter on Monday for posting misinformation about COVID-19, and critics were angered by the short penalty.
The Georgia Republican’s account was placed into “read-only mode” for 12 hours after she suggested vaccines weren’t necessary and the coronavirus “is not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65,” reported the BBC.
Two of Greene’s tweets were labeled with a “misleading” tag. The offending posts remain live.
“We took enforcement action on the account @mtgreenee for violations of the Twitter Rules, specifically the Covid-19 misleading information policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told The New York Times.
Greene’s comments came as the highly transmissible delta variant continues to spread across the United States and infections rise.
Greene, a follower of the unhinged QAnon conspiracy, attempted to flip the half-day suspension into an attack on President Joe Biden and “Big Tech companies,” who she claimed “are doing the bidding of the Biden regime to restrict our voices and prevent the spread of any message that isn’t state-approved,” she told the Times.
Greene was similarly suspended from the platform in January for pushing former President Donald Trump’s election lies.
While some people praised Twitter’s action, critics asked why Greene (who has previously praised people refusing to receive the vaccine, railed against the wearing of masks and likened House mask mandates to the Holocaust) wasn’t booted from the platform forever.
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