Feb. 12 (UPI) — Twitter on Thursday permanently banned the account of conservative activist organization Project Veritas, citing violation of the platform’s rules.
A Twitter representative told CNN the account was permanently suspended following repeated violations of policies prohibiting sharing — or threatening to share — other people’s private information without their consent.
The company also temporarily locked the account of Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe for violating the same policy, saying he must remove the violative content before regaining the ability to tweet.
Twitter did not specify what post violated the policy, but O’Keefe told Politico the ban came in response to a video Project Veritas posted in which the group confronted Facebook Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen outside his home.
“Twitter claimed the video published private information, which is false,” O’Keefe said. “Twitter invited Project Veritas to, and we did, appeal that decision with Twitter. In an apparent act of retaliation for daring to question their authority, Twitter responded to our appeal by suspending our account, continuing to tell us that Project Veritas could delete the tweet and have our account reinstated.”
O’Keefe also said he would not delete the tweet in question.
Earlier this week, Twitter CFO Ned Segal said President Donald Trump’s Twitter ban following his statements in the midst of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol will remain in place even if he runs for president in 2024.
