Platform says USMC veteran and former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter violated “targeted harassment” rule
Twitter “permanently suspended”Scott Ritter (retired US Marine Corps officer) accused him Wednesday of engaging in illegal behavior. He questioned the claims by Ukrainian authorities that Russian troops had killed civilians near Kiev in Bucha. Ritter is perhaps best remembered as the ex-UN weapons inspector who doubted US claims on Iraqi weapons, which Washington invoked as a pretext to the invasion of 2003.
“So apparently I’ve been suspended from Twitter for the crime of challenging the orthodox narrative of the so-called Bucha massacre,”Ritter posted the following message on Telegram, along with a screenshot of what he got from Big Tech.
“I’ve appealed, so who knows what the future will bring,”Ritter stated, and added: “Freedom of speech in America today is an endangered concept.”
According to the screenshot, Twitter’s censors had decided that Ritter violated their rules against “harassment and abuse”they claimed that Bucha’s Ukrainian police committed crimes against humanity and tried to put the blame on Russia by claiming it was being assisted by the US.
Ritter’s tweet did not contain calls for abuse or harassment, or wish physical harm on anyone, Shadowproof journalist Kevin Gosztola pointed outHe argued that his ban was unconstitutional. “shows how Twitter Rules can be twisted to silence US foreign policy critics.”
Recent updates to the rules include “denying mass casualty events took place,” Gosztola noted, but he said Ritter hadn’t done that, either.
Ritter examined in an RT op-ed Monday the allegations by Ukraine that Russian troops were withdrawing from Bucha and had murdered civilians. Ritter pointed out a variety of contradictions. “red flags”With them, and placing them in context of the propaganda warfare raging alongside the military conflict.
Grayzone’s Aaron Mate also pointed out that there was nothing that fit the definition of “targeted harassment” in Ritter’s flagged tweet, and asked Twitter to “please undo”The ban.
“You’re suspending a decorated Marine Corps veteran and former chief UN weapons inspector who bravely warned the world about the Bush [administration’s] Iraq WMD lies. Silencing voices of dissent will make your platform un-usable,”Mate tweeted.
Ritter, who was a US Marine veteran, had inspect Soviet weapons in accordance with the INF treaty. Ritter also worked as UN chief weapons inspector in Iraq, 1991-1998, and was part of General Norman Schwarzkopf’s team during the First Gulf War.
His “suspension” comes just days after Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk took a seat on Twitter’s board of directors, having become the platform’s largest single individual shareholder on hints that he would dial back its censorship.
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