Twitter’s initial decision to suspend the official campaign account of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) caused a massive boycott of the site’s advertising platform from the GOP.
After the senator told a radio station that the GOP was “in a major war with [Twitter],” the company backed down and restored Team Mitch’s account. Team Mitch tweeted out “Victory!” at noon on August 9 with a funny GIF of McConnell’s head on the body of the character who escaped prison in Shawshank Redemption.
Although Twitter made it seem like it had backed down, Twitter Comms tweeted out a different story.
Twitter stated that its staff still believed that the tweet in question violated the rules. “The video contained a violent threat directed at Leader McConnell, a clear violation of the Twitter Rules.” After “reviewing the case more closely,” Twitter decided to leave the video up, but “with a sensitive media interstitial and only in cases where the Tweet content does not otherwise violate the Twitter Rules.”
So the video will still be censored by Twitter. The only thing that changed is that Team Mitch will not be suspended for posting it.
The Republican Senate came out in full force in support of McConnell today. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) said in an interview with Pete Mundo “The idea that Twitter would censor and punish Mitch McConnell for a bunch of threats that a bunch of liberal wackos made against his life... I mean, it's really extraordinary stuff."
