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After Twitter temporarily locked the campaign account of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a string of leading Republican campaign committees announced an ad spending boycott against the social media platform. McConnell's official campaign account was locked Wednesday after his team posted a video of protesters outside his Louisville, Kentucky, home earlier this week.
Twitter's blanket policy bans videos that include violent threats, even from those who receive such threats. The video in question, which also aired on Fox News, featured protest chants calling McConnell "murder turtle," and shouts from the crowd inciting violence against him.
Twitter told CNET in a statement that McConnell's campaign account was locked because the video "violated our violent threats policy, specifically threats involving physical safety."
McConnell's campaign account has since been restored.
On Friday, Twitter said it reviewed the case more closely after multiple appeals and will allow the video to be visible with a sensitive media warning.
"Going forward, the video will be visible on the service with a sensitive media interstitial and only in cases where the Tweet content does not otherwise violate the Twitter Rules," the company's communications team tweeted.
Going forward, the video will be visible on the service with a sensitive media interstitial and only in cases where the Tweet content does not otherwise violate the Twitter Rules. https://t.co/Cuvh305ERA
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) August 9, 2019
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Following similar tweets from the House and Senate GOP campaign organizations, the National Republican Campaign Committee joined the ad spending stand-off.
"I have directed the @nrcc to immediately halt all spending with @Twitter until they correctRead More – Source
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