UPDATE: The Associated Press reported that President Donald Trump received a permanent ban as well, citing the potential for him to incite violence.
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his lawyer, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, were both permanently banned from Twitter amid the social-media publisher’s latest crackdown on dissenting viewpoints.
This is unbelievable.
General Michael Flynn has been banned from Twitter.
— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) January 8, 2021
Twitter claimed the two outspoken conservative thought-leaders were promoting ideas that could potentially stoke harmful behavior.
“The accounts have been suspended in line with our policy on Coordinated Harmful Activity,” the company said in a statement to NBC News.
“We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, and given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content.”
The action came as Powell, who has been vocal in her efforts to pursue cases of election fraud, was sued for libel by Dominion Voting Systems.
The company, however, is unlikely to prevail in the case unless it can show that Powell’s statements were demonstrably false and that Powell knew—or should have known—that they were not true.
Twitter temporarily suspended President Donald Trump’s account on Wednesday, forcing him to delete several tweets in which he had called for supporters involved in breaching the US Capitol to “go home.”
