Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe is fighting back after his Twitter account was “permanently” suspended Thursday for an alleged violation of “Twitter rules.”
The action comes one day after Project Veritas released a damning exposé on CNN, and the guerilla journalist announced that he will sue the social media platform for defamation, saying Twitter accused him of “operating fake accounts.”
“This is false, this is defamatory and they will pay,” he said in a statement released Thursday. “Section 230 may have protected them before, but it will not protect them from me. The complaint will be filed Monday.”
BREAKING: James O'Keefe is suing Twitter after it permanently suspended his account. pic.twitter.com/nWiCDC7FAf
— LifeNews.com (@LifeNewsHQ) April 15, 2021
A Twitter spokesperson told The Hill the account “was permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules on platform manipulation and spam.”
“As outlined in our policy on platform manipulation and spam, ‘You can’t mislead others on Twitter by operating fake accounts,’ and ‘you can’t artificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts,” the spokesperson said.
O’Keefe adamantly denies the charge and, perhaps more importantly, noted that the CNN videos have all been taken down.
Update from James O'Keefe following his wrongful suspension from Twitter
hint: he's suing them#FreeJamesOKeefe pic.twitter.com/ssOREZsaZX
— veritastips@protonmail.com🇺🇸 (@EricSpracklen) April 16, 2021
The timing of the suspension cannot be ignored, coming one day after Project Veritas released secretly-recorded video of CNN technical director Charles Chester claiming the network’s “focus” in the 2020 election was to “get rid of” former President Trump, and that they relied on “propaganda” to achieve this means.
“Look what we did, we [CNN] got Trump out. I am 100 percent going to say it, and I 100 percent believe that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out,” the CNN staffer said on video.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg, as Chester claimed CNN hyped the COVID-19 death toll for “gangbuster” ratings, and that the network endeavored to “help” Black Lives Matter.
For anyone paying scant attention to the product CNN puts out, none of these claims are surprising. What is surprising is that one of their own is actually admitting it.
O’Keefe appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” Thursday evening to say Twitter is “falsely and maliciously claiming that I did something that I did not do,” and that in suing them, he intends to prove “malice.”
“And I speak on behalf of a lot of people. I started this because I was fighting against injustice,” he added. “It’s wrong what they are doing. They defame millions of people. They defame people every day. And we will not lose.”
(Video: Fox News)
Project Veritas targeted Twitter in January, publishing internal remarks from CEO Jack Dorsey and others following the permanent suspension of Trump. In February, the social media platform temporarily suspended the account for allegedly violating its policy against sharing private information.
Again, the timing of the latest suspension could not be more suspect, as noted by the Daily Caller’s Greg Price:
Twitter banned Carpe Donktum right after his viral parody of CNN with the babies and they banned James O’Keefe after he released videos of a CNN employee that embarrassed the company
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 15, 2021
Donald Trump Jr. responded to the controversy to tweet that “both CNN and Twitter should have to register with the FEC as Democrat Super PACs.”
He also tweeted that “they’re all on the same team.”
In case you haven’t figured out how it works by now…@CNN spreads propaganda to elect Democrats
And then @Twitter runs interference to protect CNN.
They’re all on the same team. https://t.co/xPi2CbOdxm
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 15, 2021
There was widespread condemnation of Twitter in response to the suspension of O’Keefe. In the eyes of many, there’s no getting around the notion that Twitter and CNN seem to be joined at the hip.
Here’s a sampling of some of the responses from Twitter:
Twitter has just suspended @JamesOKeefeIII. He violated no policy.
But his reporting exposed @CNN bias, and their friends at Twitter apparently couldn’t stand for that.
What happened to giving “everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly,” @jack?
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) April 15, 2021
“You can shape an entire people’s perception about anything. . .just by forcing a story”
James O’Keefe and Project Veritas got a CNN director admitting on camera what most people already knew…and Twitter banned him for it.
Wake up. https://t.co/p6fjZObZFi
— PragerU (@prageru) April 15, 2021
Twitter just suspended James O’Keefe, for acting well within the bounds of the law in exposing media bias and corruption.
Anyone who denies the danger of this control on information in the public square is a fascist and not your friend. pic.twitter.com/zbzOSGwMla— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) April 15, 2021
After the latest round of hidden camera videos embarrassing to CNN were released, @JamesOKeefeIII has been permanently banned from Twitter. The @Project_Veritas account was also recently banned. This is how big tech works with liberal corporate media to take down challengers.
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) April 15, 2021
Have to wonder what threats CNN made to Twitter to achieve this pic.twitter.com/QsLlYdSG9D
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) April 15, 2021
The suspension of James O’Keefe only exposes the totalitarian mindset that now governs Twitter. This platform has become an official organ of left-wing propaganda. There is no open public forum in America now—until we build a new one!
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) April 15, 2021
Twitter suspended James O’Keefe’s account after his bombshell #ExposeCNN tapes exposed Twitter’s preferred news network as a bunch of political activists & race baiting frauds. pic.twitter.com/A9I03twgk0
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) April 15, 2021
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