[COMMENTARY] Trump Allies Suspended From Twitter

Just days after Donald Trump saw his Twitter account all-too-briefly suspended, his closest allies are finding themselves in a similar situation as Jack Dorsey seems to be finally caving to pressure to cleanse the platform of right-wing hate speech with potentially deadly outcomes. Two prominent members of Trump’s legal team, along with a recently pardoned traitor who pleaded guilty twice to being a foreign agent can no longer tweet, and social media will be better for it.

Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, and disgraced former General Mike Flynn have had their accounts suspended indefinitely, along with Ron Watkins, who ran the Dark Web site 8kun, an offshoot of 8Chan. Flynn’s son Michael Flynn, Jr., has also been banned from Twitter.

UNITED STATES – NOVEMBER 19 (FILE): Sidney Powell, attorney for President Donald Trump, conducts a news conference at the Republican National Committee on lawsuits regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Thursday, November 19, 2020. Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani also attended. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Lin Wood attacks Israel — [Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images]

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 13: National Security Adviser Michael Flynn talks to others before President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speak during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, Feb. 13, 2017. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Only in this vast wasteland we call the ’20s would a former General who served in the real military would fall prey to the nonsensical QAnon conspiracy theories, but as we saw at the Capitol on Wednesday, being in a cult fomenting sedition and treason is bad.

BREAKING: Twitter is taking dramatic action on remaining QAnon accounts for breaking their "Coordinated Harmful Activity" rules, some of whom heavily promoted Wednesday's storming of the Capitol.

Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, 8kun's Ron Watkins banned.

Twitter's statement below: pic.twitter.com/gINAtowQSb

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) January 8, 2021

Twitter had briefly suspended Trump’s account for inciting violence but reinstated him twelve hours later.

As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy. https://t.co/k6OkjNG3bM

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 7, 2021

Twitter has been vastly and rightly criticized for not doing enough to control the spread of hate speech and propaganda on the site. Users targeted by MAGA and QAnon accounts often find themselves swarmed en masse by bots, or worse, mass reported and sent to Twitter jail. In the summer of 2020, Twitter announced it would be cracking down on disinformation accounts spreading the QAnon conspiracy theories, but from personal experience, I can tell you that they didn’t do nearly enough. Flynn, Powell, and Wood all still have free reign on the rightwing app Parler, where Wood has openly called for Mike Pence to “meet the firing squad” and worse.