- Twitter has locked @Team_Mitch, an account managed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s re-election campaign.
- The account posted a video to Twitter showing a group of Kentucky protesters in opposition to McConnell on Aug. 6.
- The video was later removed by Twitter with a link to its enforcement policies for tweets that violate the social media platform’s rules.
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A Twitter account representing the campaign of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was locked by Twitter for an apparent policy violation. Twitter removed a video posted to @Team_Mitch on Aug. 6 that showed a group of protesters opposing McConnell’s campaign in his home state of Kentucky; the video was replaced with a link to Twitter’s enforcement policies.
McConnell’s campaign tweeted that the protesters and other liberal users on Twitter were threatening physical violence against the senator. McConnell recently fractured his shoulder at his home in Kentucky on Aug. 4, and multiple Twitter users have posted tweets welcoming further injury to the Senate majority leader.
A statement from Twitter said the @Team_Mitch account was locked for sharing the video, which included violent threats against McConnell.
"The user was temporarily locked out of their account for a Tweet that violated our violent threats policy, specifically threats involving physical safety," a Twitter spokesperson said.
While @Team_Mitch was using the video to highlight aggression against McConnell, Twitter’s policy is to block content that includes violent threats, regardless of context. The lock on @Team_Mitch is temporary, but the account hasn’t tweeted since Aug. 6, the day the video was posted.
Speaking to CNBC, McConnell’s campaign manager Kevin Golden criticized Twitter for allowing accusatory nicknames like ‘Massacre Mitch’ to trend nationally, while punishing @Team_Mitch for sharing threats against them. Golden told CNBC the campaign had appealed Twitter’s account lock, but it was denied.
Twitter revealed a new enforcement policy for politicians and other influential users in June that labels tweets that are in violation of the platform’s policies instead of deleting them. However, that policy is only in place for Twitter accounts with 100,000 or more followers; @Team_Mitch only has 29,400. McConnell’s personal Twitter account, @Senatemajldr, has 954,200 followers and has not posted since Aug. 5.
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Source: Business Insider – kwebb@businessinsider.com (Kevin Webb)