Less than two weeks after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a new bill to ‘stop the censorship of Floridians by big tech, his office released a statement celebrating Twitter suspending one of DeSantis’ main critics, Floridian Rebekah Jones.
Jones, a former Florida Department of Health employee was fired last year for repeatedly violating the agency’s policy about communicating with the news media.
She helped build the state’s online presentation of its COVID-19 data and raised doubts about the information being reported by the state when Florida was an epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Miami Herald. She suggested that Health Department managers wanted her to manipulate information to paint a rosier picture and that she pushed back, allegations that state officials said were untrue.
She rose to national prominence after the allegations and was pitted against DeSantis who at the time was declaring victory over COVID.
So, when Twitter suspended her account for ‘platform manipulation’ DeSantis’ office released a statement applauding the tech company for taking a step they thought was “long overdue.”
“Rebekah Jones is the Typhoid Mary of COVID-19 disinformation and has harmed hardworking DOH employees with her defamatory conspiracy theories.” the statement from the governor’s office read.
“I hope someone will ask Ms. Jones why she thinks she got suspended — will she allege that Governor DeSantis is somehow behind Twitter’s decision? That would be deeply ironic if she tried to spin that falsehood into her conspiracy theory, given the Governor’s stance on Big Tech,” the statement added.
According to the Miami Herald, Jones’ suspension comes after she repeatedly shared an article from the Herald about officers raiding her home last year. She has appealed the decision and told the outlet that ‘it was clearly an auto-lock feature against spamming” and that her account “should be back up soon.”
Still, DeSantis’ office weighing in and celebrating big tech suspending one his critics was not the smartest thing to do considering that the governor signed a new bill last month to stop the censorship of Floridians by big tech.
“This session, we took action to ensure that ‘We the People’ — real Floridians across the Sunshine State — are guaranteed protection against the Silicon Valley elites,” said Governor DeSantis in a press release. “Many in our state have experienced censorship and other tyrannical behavior firsthand in Cuba and Venezuela. If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable.”
