Twitter, whose founder has expressed regret that his organization’s advocacy for free speech may have contributed to Donald Trump’s election as president, on Wednesday suspended for 12 hours WND.com’s account for a headline tweet on Donna Brazile’s involvement in the scandal developing over the death of DNC staffer Seth Rich.
Rich died in a gun attack in Washington, D.C., last July, and several individuals believe he was the source of DNC internal emails that were turned over to WikiLeaks and published on the Internet on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.
The tweet was: “Bombshell: Donna Brazile warned off private eye on Seth Rich murder…”
On Wednesday, Twitter sent a message instructing WND to delete the tweet. “If you feel that your account has been locked in error, you can appeal by contacting our support team here,” Twitter said.
Another message stated: “We’ve temporarily limited some of your account features.”
“What happened? We have determined that you have violated the Twitter Rules, so we’ve temporarily limited some of your account features. While in this state, you can still browse Twitter, but you’re limited to only sending Direct Messages to your followers – no tweets, retweets, or likes. Your account will be restored to full functionality in: 11 hours and 10 minutes.”
Twitter declined to comment when asked by a WND reporter, except to ask which account was being referenced.
A WND company official confirmed the tweet was deleted per the company’s instructions.
The news story was about a private detective’s revelation that former Democratic National Committee interim chairwoman Donna Brazile was the high-ranking DNC representative who allegedly called police and the Rich family and demanded to know why a private investigator was “snooping” into the case.
The detective, Rod Wheeler, told WND: “The high-ranking DNC official that called the police after I inquired about Rich’s case was Donna Brazile. Why shouldn’t I reveal who it was?”
Brazile, who was also a CNN contributor and a Hillary for America donor at the time, was caught providing Clinton with questions that would later be asked of Clinton at a televised CNN town hall. In an interview with Fox News before the election, Brazile denied leaking the questions to Clinton. But in a March 17, 2017, column for Time magazine, she finally admitted doing so, saying it was a “mistake I will forever regret.”
A spokesman for the Rich family has repeatedly criticized detective Wheeler, who was hired by the family in March, for not ruling out the possibility that Rich may have leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks. The family recently sent Wheeler a “cease and desist” order to stop his investigation into the murder.
As WND reported, Rich was murdered July 10, 2016, a block from his home in an affluent neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He was shot in the back with a handgun at 4:18 a.m., and nothing was taken from him. He was transported to a local hospital and was pronounced dead at 5:57 a.m. On July 22, just 12 days after Rich’s death and days before the Democratic Party Convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks released 20,000 emails from DNC officials.
Wheeler said in several interviews last week that a federal investigator has elaborate details of Rich’s connection to WikiLeaks and is a credible source.
While the Twitter rules don’t address news stories about high-profile public figures and high-profile public scandals, it appears there were no violations under the company’s trademark, copyright, graphic content, unlawful use, Twitter badges, abuse, violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct, account abuse, private information, impersonation, self-harm or spam restrictions.
However, the rules are open-ended in several categories so that if a politically motivated employee was offended, he could push the button.
Interestingly, anti-Shariah activist Pam Geller reported also on Wednesday that Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder and still a board member, “went on a snark attack against President Donald Trump – a prolific tweeter, if there ever was one – and outright apologized for helping the former businessman reach the pinnacle of power, the White House.”
“In an interview with the New York Times, he said his organization was intended to give everyone a chance to engage in the free exchange of thoughts and ideas. But apparently, he now feels he created a monster – that the free exchange offered Trump, and by logical extension, Trump supporters, has just gone too far.
“And he’s not gonna take it any more.”
She reported the Indian Express wrote: “Twitter co-founder Evan Williams … apologized for making Trump’s presidency possible. Williams, who still is a member of Twitter’s board of directors, in an interview … said the purpose of his organization was to give everyone a chance to have free exchange of information and ideas.
“‘I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place. I was wrong about that,'” the report quoted him saying.
The report continued: “He further went on to apologize in case the microblogging website played a role in getting Trump elected 45th president of the United States. ‘It’s a very bad thing, Twitter’s role in that. If it’s true that he wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for Twitter, then yeah, I’m sorry,’ he said.”
Trump has openly credited social media for his success.
“Without the tweets, I wouldn’t be here … I have over 100m followers between Facebook, Twitter [and] instagram. Over 100 million. I don’t have to go to the fake media,” he said.
