Twitter restricted the account of General Michael Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell on Monday. The lawyer’s account was later restored after she proved to Twitter that she was not “spam.”
“[Jack], Why in the world did @Twitter suspend my account and remove everyone I was following,” tweeted Powell to the company’s CEO Jack Dorsey on Monday.
“Your abuse of conservative and #patriotic free speech knows no bounds,” she added. “Why no blue checkmark for me?”
On Monday afternoon, all of the accounts that General Flynn’s lawyer had been following appeared to have vanished, bringing her following count back to zero. Although this is typical of a Twitter account restriction, it is alarming to users who have not broken any rules.
Powell’s Twitter account was restricted just weeks after the social media platform has added “fact checks” and warnings to President Donald Trump’s tweets, deeming some of the president’s content in violation of the Twitter rules.
In May, President Trump Trump signed an executive order aimed at addressing social media censorship, which included defining social media as the “modern public square” and potentially changing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Last week, Twitter banned the influential pro-Trump meme maker known as “Carpe Donktum” due to a copyright claim over his “Racist Baby” parody video that mocks CNN.
Twitter, however, says that Powell’s account was restricted on Monday due to the platform’s policy on platform manipulation and spam, and that the lawyer was temporarily locked out of her account until she was able to prove her identity to the comapny.
Powell has since regained access to her account.
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