After a mob of protesters surrounded Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky home screaming death threats at the Republican, Twitter punished those who shared videos and quotes of the incident.
Protesters descended on McConnell’s home in Louisville, Kentucky on Monday evening, following the two mass shootings in Texas and Ohio that left more than 30 people dead over the weekend. They rang cowbells and chanted obscenities, calling for gun control legislation.
A Facebook live stream of the whole thing caught expletive-laden statements from protesters, such as a call for someone to “stab [McConnell] in the heart,” and regrets that the senator only broke his shoulder rather than his neck.
“Don’t nobody give a f**k! F**k your thoughts and prayers, Mitch. F**k you, f**k your wife, f**k everything you stand for,” one protester could be heard yelling.
The video was quickly shared by conservative journalists, as well as by McConnell’s re-election campaign. Twitter then demanded they delete it, ostensibly for the senator’s safety. When Ryan Saavedra of the Daily Wire refused to delete the footage, he said his account was temporarily suspended.
Twitter asked me yesterday to delete this tweet:
It showed a person allegedly calling for violence against Mitch McConnell
The person appears to be a BLM activist who has met with Elizabeth Warren
I said no and they suspended me *and* McConnell's re-election campaign
THREAD: pic.twitter.com/RSospX3212
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) August 7, 2019
McConnell’s campaign account was also locked, until it agreed to remove the “offending” video.
Meanwhile, Twitter has allowed hashtags such as #MassacreMitch and #MassacreMoscowMitch to trend, and they were still allowed as of Wednesday evening, having been popular with Hollywood celebrities and liberal pundits alike.
Facebook seems to have purged the video of the protest from its platform as well, with a link to a previously available live stream now returning a blank page.
Saavedra and other conservative journalists have argued that Twitter is not protecting McConnell, but rather shielding the protesters from exposure and criticism.
This is absurd. The tweet in question was video of a woman yelling threats at McConnell himself, and twitter suspended McConnell’s campaign account, saying the tweets put McConnell in danger.
What in the world?! @TwitterSupporthttps://t.co/L2gCpYvsNK
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) August 7, 2019
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