Twitter permanently suspends accounts of Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell
08 January 2021
Twitter permanently suspended the accounts of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and President Trump's lawyer Sidney Powell on Friday for breaking the platform's "Coordinated Harmful Activity" policy.
Why it matters: The action comes as part of the platform's crackdown on QAnon-related content. Both Flynn and Powell have promoted the far-right conspiracy theory that purports without evidence that the "deep state" is waging against President Trump.
Context: The bans come after Twitter temporarily suspended Trump's account and threatened to permanently remove him from the platform if he continues to post false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
What they're saying: "When we determine that a group, movement, or campaign meets the criteria for designation as engaged in Coordinated Harmful Activity, we may suspend accounts whose primary use is to propagate and/or encourage engagement in the identified coordinated harmful activity," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement
- "We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, and given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content."
The big picture: The platform also removed the accounts of Michael Flynn Jr., and Ron Watkins, the administrator of 8kun, the website formerly called 8chan that hosts posts from Q — the anonymous figure behind the conspiracy theory.
Go deeper:The Capitol siege's QAnon roots
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.