Twitter shut down the account of the U.S.-based Christian Post for accurately describing President Joe Biden’s transgender assistant health secretary, Rachel Levine, as a man — and the social media giant cited a foreign law to justify its actions.
The evangelical Christian outlet told its readers on Monday that its Twitter account had been “temporarily limited” because of a tweet about Levine, a man who identifies as female.
The Christian Post said it was told by Twitter it no longer would be able to post anything new and could not like or follow other users or retweet posts.
The outlet was further informed that it would be suspended from Twitter for 12 hours.
The “offensive” tweet was the Christian Post’s March 15 message that read, “USA Today names Rachel Levine, a man, among its ‘Women of the Year.'”
As of Wednesday afternoon, the tweet was replaced by a message that reads, “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules. Learn more.”
The outlet said it was told it had been “flagged for possible violations of Twitter’s hateful conduct policy.” This policy, Twitter said, is based on France’s Law for Confidence in the Digital Economy.
“Publishing content that is obviously unlawful under Article 6 of the LCEN law or that amounts to hate speech under the LCEN law can lead to civil and criminal penalties,” Twitter’s email to the Christian Post read.
The social media giant went on to inform the outlet that if it didn’t like the punishment, it could take its case before a French court.
“If you believe the withheld content does not violate the French law,” Twitter told the Christian Post, “you may challenge the above decision by filing an appeal. You can also challenge this decision in a French court of justice.”
French law was not the only foreign law that Twitter said the outlet may have “violated.” The company also said it investigated the Christian Post’s tweets to see if they violated...
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