• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, August 10, 2021

On Monday night, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that the Food and Drug Administration shouldn't approve the COVID vaccines, writing that there were "too many reports" about infections among vaccinated people.

"These vaccines are failing & do not reduce the spread of the virus & neither do masks," the Republican from Georgia added.

By Tuesday morning, Twitter had suspended her account for one week, due to repeated violations of the company's policies. Her prior posts will remain visible for the week, but she won't be able to post anything new. 

Last month, Twitter suspended Greene for 12 hours over a tweet arguing that the “controversial” COVID-19 vaccines “should not be forced on our military for a virus that is not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65.”

She also drew a 12-hour suspension in January for a post relating to debunked claims about voter fraud during the last election.

The newest suspension comes as Twitter and other Silicon Valley companies are facing competing and contradictory demands from public officials over content moderation.

Democrats on Capitol Hill, including Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), have said the platforms aren't doing enough to police false information about COVID-19. In April, Klobuchar and Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico) suggested to Twitter and Facebook that they should ban some prominent people who allegedly spread falsehoods about vaccines.

And last month, Klobuchar introduced the “Health Misinformation Act,” which would penalize websites that promote users' posts that contain incorrect information about COVID-19. Specifically, the measure, co-sponsored by Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico), carves out an exception to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for users' posts with false health information, when those posts are algorithmically promoted during a national emergency (Section 230 currently protects websites from liability over user-generated content.)

On the other side of the aisle, some prominent Republicans are criticizing tech companies for taking any steps to police content.

Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) introduced a bill in June that would prohibit Google, Facebook, Twitter and other large tech platforms from removing any lawful speech posted by users -- including content that's racist, sexist or untrue.

And in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott is again renewing an attempt to push through a bill that would prohibit large platforms from blocking, banning or demonetizing state residents based on their political opinions. Texas state senators passed the measure in March, but the bill stalled in the House after Democrats walked out in late May, depriving the legislature of a quorum.

Since then, Abbott has called two special 30-day sessions -- one in July, and one that began on Sunday -- to take up unfinished business, including the social media bill.

For her part, Greene took to Telegram to blast Twitter over her suspension.

“They will allow porn on Twitter. They will allow posts about parents transitioning their children and changing their gender on Twitter,” she wrote. “But Twitter won’t allow any real discussion of the truth from an elected Congresswoman because Twitter only cares about the Democrat Communist agenda for America. It's a good thing my voters couldn't care less about Twitter.”