Focus on the Family‘s Christian magazine The Daily Citizen was locked out of their Twitter account for a post that was accused of violating the social media giant’s rules.
The alleged violation was a quote from one of their articles that reported on Dr. Rachel Levine, President Biden’s nomination for the Assistant Health and Human Services Secretary, who is transgender. Zachary Mettler, a staff writer for The Daily Citizen, wrote that “Dr. Levine is a transgender woman, that is, a man who believes he is a woman” in the lead paragraph of the article. A paraphrase of the paragraph was posted on Twitter and used to promote a link back to the full article.
The Daily Citizen was sent an email from Twitter informing their account has been locked because they violated Twitter’s rules, which resulted in the Focus on the Family affiliated magazine having to delete the tweet.
According to The Daily Citizen’s article regarding the situation the email read as follows:
“Hi The Daily Citizen, your account, @FocusCitizen has been locked for violating the Twitter Rules. Specifically for: Violating our rules against hateful conduct. You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. Please note that repeated violations may lead to a permanent suspension of your account,” the email warned. “Proceed to Twitter now to fix the issue with your account.”
The Daily Citizen appealed the violation sending Twitter an email that said: