Elon Musk and many adoring conservative pundits have been quick to tout Twitter as a beacon of free speech since the billionaire acquired the company last year. But the platform’s Tuesday suspension of Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), further undercuts such a narrative.
After changing his profile photo to a picture of him and his wife hunting, Daines’ account was suspended, with Twitter claiming the image violated the company’s rules against “graphic violence or adult content in profile images.”
“You may not include graphic violence or adult content in your profile photo or profile header image,” the Twitter warning sent to Daines reads. “We consider graphic violence to be any form of gory media related to death, serious injury, violence, or surgical procedures. We consider adult content to be any media that is pornographic and/or may be intended to cause sexual arousal.”
As of this article’s publication, all of Daines’ tweets are hidden from public view.
“This is insane. Twitter should immediately reverse this suspension,” NRSC spokesman Philip Letsou said in a statement.
When pressed on what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has done to protect Daines and the American public from insane Big Tech censorship, a spokeswoman for his office told The Federalist she hasn’t “spoken personally” with McConnell about the issue, but would “make note” of it and “pass that forward to him.”
While Musk’s Twitter acquisition has led to the release of “The Twitter Files,” which document a shadowbanning operation aimed at conservative figures and coordinated efforts between the company and the federal government to squash open debate online, the platform is not the free speech platform it’s made out to be. As Musk himself has admitted, “freedom of speech” on Twitter does not include “freedom of reach,” meaning the shadowbanning tactics used to suppress prominent conservative accounts and posts under the company’s prior leadership are still being employed to silence those that Twitter or its new owner deem unfavorable.
Twitter has yet to reverse account suspensions for some conservative figures such as Federalist Senior Editor John Daniel Davidson, who was locked out of his account nearly a year ago for factually stating that Biden administration official Rachel Levine is a man.
