Twitter Suspends Account of State Senator Who Called Pennsylvania Election Hearing

Twitter Suspends Account of State Senator Who Called Pennsylvania Election Hearing
A sign on the exterior of Twitter's headquarter in San Francisco, Calif., on July 26, 2018. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Zachary Stieber
Updated:

Twitter on Wednesday suspended the account of Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican who called an election oversight hearing that presented allegations and evidence of voter fraud.

Mastriano’s personal account was active until Wednesday afternoon. The page for the account now says it is suspended.

“Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules,” the technology giant posted on the page.

A Twitter spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email: “This account was mistakenly suspended for perceived violations of our impersonation policy. This was an error. We have immediately reversed the decision and the account has been reinstated.”

The personal account was offline for over 24 hours before being restored on Friday.

Mastriano’s state senate account was never suspended.

Twitter has increasingly interfered in people’s usage of its service, ramping up censorship and account bans in recent months. Lawmakers are eyeing changes to Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act, which shields tech companies from most liability lawsuits, in response.

According to the Pennsylvania state Senate GOP, the Nov. 25 hearing in Gettysburg was called because of Mastriano.

“Elections are a fundamental principle of our democracy—unfortunately, Pennsylvanians have lost faith in the electoral system. It is unacceptable,” he said in a statement.

“Over the past few weeks, I have heard from thousands of Pennsylvanians regarding issues experienced at the polls, irregularities with the mail-in voting system, and concerns whether their vote was counted. We need to correct these issues to restore faith in our republic.”

Supporters of President Donald Trump gather outside of the Wyndham Hotel before a Pennsylvania State Senate Majority Policy Committee hearing, in Gettysburg, Pa., on Nov. 25, 2020. (Julio Cortez/AP Photo)
Supporters of President Donald Trump gather outside of the Wyndham Hotel before a Pennsylvania State Senate Majority Policy Committee hearing, in Gettysburg, Pa., on Nov. 25, 2020. Julio Cortez/AP Photo
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden won Pennsylvania over President Donald Trump, according to results from the state. Trump’s campaign and others are challenging those results, alleging irregularities and fraud took place. A judge earlier Wednesday told Pennsylvania officials not to certify the results, a decision the officials appealed hours later.

During the hearing, poll observers testified that they couldn’t properly observe anything at the Philadelphia Convention Center.

“The Philadelphia board of elections processed hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots with zero civilian oversight or observation,” said Justin Kweder, one of the observers.

Trump called into the hearing to allege the Nov. 3 election was full of fraud and that he would like to “turn the election over.”
Melanie Sun, Jack Phillips, and Bowen Xiao contributed to this report.
Zachary Stieber
Zachary Stieber
Senior Reporter
Zachary Stieber is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in Maryland. He covers U.S. and world news. Contact Zachary at [email protected]
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