Goodbye MTG, I Won’t Miss You
January 7, 2022
When feeling lost in life, many people seem to follow in the footsteps of their idols. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) seems very, very lost.
Greene has a long history of living by Donald Trump’s example: far-right pandering, social media meltdowns, ultra-conservative politics and conspiracy theories about everything from election fraud to white genocide.
And now, she has another thing to bond over with the former president.
As of Jan. 2, 2022, the Twitter account @mtgreenee has been permanently suspended, according to CNN. The represetative’s personal account, with just over 465,000 followers, was a regular platform for unfounded theories and unbridled conservative rage.
In one such example, Greene took to Twitter on Nov. 30, 2021 to call fellow Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina “trash” and urge her to stick with the “Jihad Squad.”
This was following Mace’s condemnation of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who had made several Islamophobic comments toward Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MI).
The thing that finally swept Greene’s account from Twitter was nothing if not a long time coming. Twitter released a statement following the ban, indicating that Greene’s repeated sharing of COVID-19 misinformation had violated Twitter guidelines. Her accounts had been suspended nearly five times prior to the permanent ban.
Though Twitter hasn’t officially clarified which specific post put @mtgreenee out of its misery, a graph was posted to the account a day before the ban that contained “misleading” information about COVID vaccine deaths, according to CNN.
The congresswoman doesn’t seem to be taking the ban well.
Much like Trump in the aftermath of his removal from most social media accounts last year, Greene derided Twitter and the rest of “Big Tech” for its supposed assault on American democracy. She urged Republicans to abandon the platform entirely.
“…all they do is try to control our political speech,” she said to NewsMax.
She called Twitter’s decision to ban a sitting representative an “attack” and warned her followers of the authoritarian grip that tech platforms apparently have on America.
“No one elected them,” Greene said. “No one put them in charge of what is information or what is misinformation…”
And sure, no one wants social media platforms in America’s highest offices. But Twitter is fully within its right as a privately-owned company to shut down Greene’s — as Mace spelled out with emojis in reply to MTG’s pro-Islamophobia rampage — “bats*** crazy” social media usage.
If anything, these bans are good. They’re a solid first step in combating online misinformation.
Every day, stories of unvaccinated individuals dying of COVID cross the internet. And anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists like Greene do nothing but feed that cycle. Every public figure who has ever fought against vaccines in the way that Greene has will have to live knowing they’ve played a role in someone’s untimely death.
So while far-right fearmongers whine about Twitter killing free speech, know that they’re killing Americans. And it’s far better to sacrifice a Twitter account if it means saving a life.