Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suspended by Twitter for a week after false claim about COVID vaccines
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been temporarily suspended from Twitter for spreading COVID-19 misinformation after claiming in a tweet that vaccines were "failing."
On Monday night, Greene tweeted that the Food and Drug Administration, which granted emergency use authorizations to the three COVID vaccines, should not fully approve them.
"The FDA should not approve the covid vaccines. There are too many reports of infection & spread of #Covid19 among vaccinated people," the Georgia Republican wrote in the tweet, which was labeled "misleading" by the platform. It has since been deleted.
"These vaccines are failing & do not reduce the spread of the virus & neither do masks," she added. "Vaccine mandates & passports violate individual freedoms."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID vaccines are safe and effective at protecting people from getting sick.
In a statement to Yahoo News, Twitter spokesman Trenton Kennedy said Tuesday that the tweet was "labeled in line with our COVID-19 misleading information policy" and that Greene's account "will be in read-only mode for a week due to repeated violations" of the company's rules.
Last month, Twitter suspended Greene for 12 hours for violating the same policy after she falsely claimed that the coronavirus — which has killed more than 614,000 Americans — is not dangerous for people unless they are obese or over age 65.
Greene, who has a long history of embracing conspiracy theories and making racist comments, was elected to the House in November.
In February, the House voted to remove her from her committee assignments after Republican leadership failed to punish her embrace of bizarre conspiracy theories and apparent endorsement of violence against Democrats.
Greene was also admonished by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after she was seen aggressively confronting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in the hallway outside the House chamber.
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