Twitter locks account of Republican lawmaker who supported QAnon

US tech giant Twitter has temporarily suspended the account of a newly elected Republican congresswoman for violating its integrity policy multiple times over baseless claims of election fraud.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s account was locked for 12 hours on Sunday after the company flagged at least two tweets as “disputed” and prevented them from being shared or retweeted as they carried the “risk of violence”, said a Twitter spokesman.

An ardent Donald Trump supporter, Green posted baseless claims over the Georgia elections on the social media platform after Democrats won the two State’s Senate seats.

The congresswoman is also known for having embraced QAnon conspiracy theories in the past and was endorsed by the president as a “future Republican star”.

QAnon followers believe in a conspiracy theory that Trump is waging a secret war against a global liberal cult of Satan-worshipping paedophiles. They have not offered any credible evidence for it.

The Georgian Republican bemoaned Twitter’s move, accusing the social media platform of censorship.

“Americans’ rights are being stripped away and they aren’t being heard by the people they elected to represent them,” Greene said in a statement.

“With Big Tech silencing them, they literally can’t be heard. The censorship has got to stop.”

“If a conservative dares to utter a political opinion that is deemed unapproved by the internet police they are now subject to false accusations of ‘inciting violence’ simply for having a conservative view,” she added.

Greene’s suspension is the latest in a series of high-profile social media bans and lockouts in the wake of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol where five people died.

Twitter banned Trump two days after the incident, and since then has scrubbed more than 70,000 accounts with QAnon ties.

Apple and Google have also barred downloads of Parler, a Twitter-like app popular among conservatives, and Amazon has kicked the platform off its servers.

That has outraged many Republicans, who say tech giants are infringing on their right to free speech.

Trump last week became the first US president in history to be impeached twice when the House of Representatives voted to charge him with inciting the January 6 mob attack on Congress.