Twitter Bans Sen. Mike Lee After Sharing Federalist Article Criticizing Biden Foreign Policy

Tristan JusticeMarch 1, 2023

After a Federalist article criticizing President Joe Biden’s foreign strategy was shared by Utah Senator Mike Lee, Lee was taken off Twitter.

The ArticleFederalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi has written a statement condemning the false binary used by proponents to label the administration’s approach towards the war in Ukraine either pro-Zelensky (or pro-Putin).

“It’s not exactly a sign of a healthy democratic discourse that it’s virtually impossible to ask a critical question about the United States’ role in the Ukraine-Russia conflict without being smeared as a Putin apologist or an “Harsanyi’s opening line stated that he was an isolationist.

Lee Share The piece along with the passage Wednesday afternoon was posted to his Twitter account, @BasedMikeLee.”

It’s unclear whether Lee’s post from the Federalist provoked the censorship. The senior Utah senator wrote in a follow-up tweet that the company has still not offered an explanation after the suspension was lifted.

Twitter’s new CEO, Elon Musk, took over the company last fall with a $44 billion-dollar deal spent on a pledge to restore corporate values of free speech on the platform. Episodes of political censorship have remained routine, however, four months after acquisition. In February, Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), was suspended Follow the instructions on the platform Sharing A harmless hunting photo.

“You are not allowed to include graphic violence or other adult content in your profile picture or profile header photo.” read a warning from the company. “Graphic violence is any media that depicts death, serious injury, violence or surgical procedures. Any media that contains pornographic material or may be designed to induce sexual arousal is considered adult content.”

Federalist Senior Editor John Davidson also remains locked out of his Twitter account for pointing out that President Biden’s transgender-identifying assistant secretary for health, Rachel Levine, is actually a man. The Babylon Bee, a conservative Christian satire site, was suspended on the platform for the same conduct but saw its penalty promptly lifted under new leadership.

After Musk took over the company, several independent journalists were given access to internal records, culminating in the “Twitter Files” which exposed government collusion as well as corporate misconduct related to censorship. Twitter ran a thorough shadowbanning operation and worked alongside federal authorities in the intelligence community to moderate content to the benefit of Democrats.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected]. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.