Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Marjorie Taylor Greene says she wants to meet with Elon Musk to discuss Twitter bans

Comes amid news the Tesla titan will acquire platform for $44bn

Eric Garcia
Thursday 28 April 2022 21:31 BST
Comments
Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Christians help migrants because Satan runs the church

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said that she hoped that she could meet with Tesla chief executive Elon Musk amid news that he has acquired Twitter.

The right-wing congresswoman from Georgia made the remarks during a news conference in front of the Capitol when introducing legislation that would abolish Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says that service providers cannot be treated as a publisher or or speaker of information provided by another provider.

Many conservatives have hoped that Mr Musk, who has spoken of a laissez-faire approach to “free speech” on Twitter would lead to a return of right-wing content providers, not excluding former president Donald Trump.

Twitter permanently booted Ms Greene off Twitter at the beginning of 2022 for repeatedly spreading misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines. Subsequently, this most recent fundraising quarter was the first one where she spent more money than she raised.

“I don’t know Mr Musk, but I do invite him to come talk with me in Washington, DC,” she said. “I’d be happy to put together a roundtable of all the most brilliant people who have been unjustly banned from Twitter and he can see for himself the urgent necessity of doing right by them.”

When asked who she would want to invite to a roundtable, she cited InfoWars host Alex Jones and right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. Mr Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter for posting racist comments about comedian Leslie Jones. Meanwhile, Twitter purged Mr Jones, who repeatedly posted conspiracy theories about the victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in 2012 being “crisis actors,” in 2018.

“We’ll put together a great list of people who have been just almost deleted from public life,” she told reporters.

The Tesla cofounder announced earlier this week that he would officially acquire Twitter in a landmark $44bn deal.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in