Washington: Twitter on Monday (local time) banned Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow who is a major Republican donor and supporter of former President Donald Trump, for repeated violations of its new policy enacted after the Capitol riots in the US.
According to a report by CNN, the decision to ban Lindell’s account was taken based on Twitter’s new policy whereby people who repeatedly share election misinformation can be permanently banned.
“The account you referenced has been permanently suspended due to repeated violations of our Civic Integrity Policy,” the Twitter spokesperson said.
Though it is not clear which tweets led to the ban on Lindell’s account, Bed Bath & Beyond stopped selling MyPillow products after Lindell voiced continued support for former President Donald Trump in the wake of the January 6 insurrection and voicing false statements publicly about the validity of the election, CNN reported.
According to an earlier report by New York Times, Lindell, a big Republican donor, had called the violence in the Capitol as “very peaceful”.
He had further stated, “There was probably some undercover Antifa that dressed as Trump people and did some damage to windows and got in there.”
Twitter’s Civic Integrity policy states: “You may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes”.
This has resulted in Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene being locked out of her account for 12 hours two weeks ago, CNN said.
Earlier this month, Twitter had banned Donald Trump citing the Capitol riots.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said.
On January 6, a group of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to protest legislators confirming electoral slates from battleground US states they thought were invalid.
Trump had made a speech among thousands of supporters reiterating his claim a massive voter fraud had robbed his election victory and encouraged supporters to maintain support to “stop the steal.”
Five people died in the riot, including one police officer as well as one Air Force veteran and Trump supporter who was shot dead by police.