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Twitter Suspends Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's Account

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., yells at journalists after setting off the metal detector outside the doors to the House of Representatives Chamber on Jan. 12. Twitter suspended the newly elected lawmaker's account temporarily on Sunday.
Chip Somodevilla
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., yells at journalists after setting off the metal detector outside the doors to the House of Representatives Chamber on Jan. 12. Twitter suspended the newly elected lawmaker's account temporarily on Sunday.

Twitter locked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene out of her account on the social media platform on Sunday, citing violations of a company policy that it recently used to remove thousands of QAnon-related accounts. The suspension is in effect for 12 hours.

Greene has repeatedly endorsed the QAnon conspiracy theory, which has sought to portray President Trump as being undermined by a deep-state cabal.

When reached on Sunday, a Twitter spokesperson told NPR that the Georgia Republican's account "has been temporarily locked out for multiple violations of our civic integrity policy."

The company's policy was updated after the recent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol — a deadly event during which Greene and others were seen not wearing face masks in a secure room where a crowd of people were sheltering.

Greene's account is still viewable to the public. The newly elected representative's most recent messages on the platform repeat false claims that elections that resulted in Trump's defeat and key Republican losses in the Senate were flawed. Key election officials in Georgia, she said, had been "begged by Republicans to fix our elections."

Twitter affixed a warning notice to Greene's message about the recent national election stating, "This claim of election fraud is disputed, and this Tweet can't be replied to, Retweeted or liked to a risk of violence." Those limits on engagement were introduced as part of the social media company's new approach to messages that are deemed to violate its civic integrity policy.

On Tuesday, Twitter announced that it has suspended more than 70,000 accounts that were used to share content about QAnon.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Bill Chappell is a writer and editor on the News Desk in the heart of NPR's newsroom in Washington, D.C.