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Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said Sunday that Twitter’s permanent ban on the personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is “a little too late” to erase the damage done by the spread of COVID-19 “disinformation” on social media.
Jayapal, who chairs the Progressive Congressional Caucus, reacted to the news of Greene’s ban on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” saying social media companies need to be doing “much, much more” to quash the spread of conspiracy theories online.
Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) leaves the Will Rogers Hallway following a television interview at the U.S. Capitol on November 18, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“It’s no secret that our social media companies have been part of their algorithms promoting disinformation,” she said. “And I think that these steps are important but, frankly, a little too little and a little too late.
“The reality is it’s not just Marjorie Taylor Greene – all over Twitter, social media, Facebook, all of these companies have been using algorithms that are just about clickbait, not about truth,” she continued. “And so if we are going to take on the disinformation that’s out there, the big lie, and everything that goes along with it, then yes, this is a part of it but it’s got to be much, much more.
“That said, I think it’s just as well that we take one voice that is deliberately spreading disinformation out of the mix as much as possible,” she added. “That’s certainly a good thing.”
Twitter announced earlier Sunday that it had permanently suspended Greene’s personal verified Twitter account for spreading COVID-19 “misinformation.”
“We permanently suspended Marjorie Taylor Greene for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” Twitter said in a statement. “We’ve been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy.”
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks at a news conference at the Capitol Building on December 07, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Greene’s congressional Twitter account, @RepMTG, is still active.
The Georgia congresswoman responded to the decision on GETTR, a conservative social media platform founded by Jason Miller, a former aide and spokesman of former President Donald Trump.
“When Maxine Waters can go to the streets and threaten violence on Twitter, Kamala and Ilhan can bail out rioters on Twitter, and Chief spokesman for terrorist IRGC can tweet mourning Soleimani but I get suspended for tweeting VAERS statistics, Twitter is an enemy to America and can’t handle the truth,” Greene wrote. “That’s fine, I’ll show America we don’t need them and it’s time to defeat our enemies.”
On Saturday, Greene had tweeted about an “extremely high amount of covid vaccine deaths” that she said are “ignored,” Rolling Stone reported.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) joins fellow anti-abortion activists in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a case about a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, on December 01, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Twitter had repeatedly temporarily suspended Greene’s account over the course of the pandemic for alleged misinformation.
Most recently, in August, she was suspended for one week and threatened with a permanent ban after she said COVID-19 vaccines were “failing.”
