Two days after Twitter permanently suspended an account belonging to Jesse Kelly, a senior contributor to The Federalist and conservative talk radio host, the social media publisher reinstated his account without any explanation.
On Sunday, Kelly’s account was taken down and he received a message from Twitter support saying that his account was taken down due to “repeat violations of the Twitter rules.” The social media publisher provided no additional information about which rules Kelly, a Marine combat veteran, had supposedly violated. Throughout the two years Kelly had a verified account, he had never received so much as a warning about any of his tweets leading up to the suspension that was supposed to be permanent.
Following his suspension, The Federalist’s Ben Domenech reported that Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey lied under oath to Congress when testifying in a hearing about the social media platform’s inconsistent and controversial rules that have resulted in numerous conservative accounts being taken down.
In response, a top aide for the House Energy and Commerce committee, which oversees and regulates telecommunications companies and social media publishers like Twitter, told The Federalist that the committee is looking into whether Dorsey lied. Hours later, incoming Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley called for a congressional investigation into Twitter’s practices. Only after the increased attention from Congress did Twitter reinstate Kelly’s account — and without any explanation.
A spokesperson reportedly told Ryan Saavedra from The Daily Wire that Kelly’s account was suspended only “temporarily” and that the social media publisher has been communicating directly with the account owner. This most recent explanation from Twitter contradicts what its employees initially told Kelly.
"Temporarily suspended"? What a boldface lie. Twitter “permanently suspended” Jesse Kelly's account and told him it “will not be restored.” But now under the threat of a Congressional investigation, they say it was just "temporary," and now it's magically restored. https://t.co/T4w6D14AzF
— Kelsey Bolar (Harkness) (@kelseybolar) November 27, 2018
Stop lying, @Jack. pic.twitter.com/dDyb8yRlqS
— Kelsey Bolar (Harkness) (@kelseybolar) November 27, 2018
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1067547761002856452
Over the weekend, Twitter also permanently banned Canadian feminist Meghan Murphy, who criticized transgenderism.
The social media publisher also recently banned “‘deadnaming’—the practice of referring to a trans person by his or her legal name, or birth name,” Nicole Russell writes. “This also likely played a role in Murphy’s suspensions and ultimate ban.”
Numerous other accounts belonging to individuals who have expressed political opinions the social media publisher didn’t like remain deactivated, including those of InfoWars’s Alex Jones. Recently, Kelly criticized Twitter’s decision to ban Jones from the platform, writing: “They do not want to compete in a marketplace of ideas. Their goal is to silence dissenting voices.”
