If you follow Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines on Twitter, you may have noticed that you haven’t been able to see his tweets for a little while. Well, there’s a reason for that: his account has been frozen.
The Twitter account of Sen. Steve Daines, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is frozen because (per Twitter) it violates the company’s “Media Policy.” pic.twitter.com/ilkQYAI67D
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) February 7, 2023
So, what’d he do? Clearly he must’ve posted something really offensive to have his account frozen. A cartoon of a colleague being beheaded? Nope. Something sexually inappropriate? Nope. It’s even worse than that:
The account was suspended, according to Twitter, because his profile pic showed him hunting with his wife. pic.twitter.com/YrpeoCf4gI
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) February 7, 2023
A senator from Montana went hunting with his wife? And has a photo documenting it? And he made that photo his profile picture on Twitter? Dear God. What a monster! Just absolutely evi— wait. What’s actually so gory (or sexually arousing?) about Daines’ photo? Because we feel like the answer is “nothing whatsoever.”
Same thing happened to me when I used a picture of me with my elk.
— Steven (@McBaine146) February 7, 2023
Daines didn’t pose with a severed head and blood spattered all over his face. He and his wife cleanly took down an animal in hunting country. If anything, his profile picture promotes responsible hunting.
Well this one is pretty silly.
— [email protected] (@LauraWalkerKC) February 7, 2023
pretty garbage reason to block an account
— stusandler (@stusandler) February 7, 2023
Ridiculous. My friend @SteveDaines is in @Twitter jail for posting this pic w/ his wife Cindy.
If you don’t like hunting, fine, don’t go. But don’t censor others who disagree.
And I’m pretty sure this is a formal job responsibility for a senator from Montana!#FreeSteveDaines pic.twitter.com/t6VdYNYe5u
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) February 7, 2023
This seems like it would be a golden opportunity for Elon Musk to step in and fix the system some more, because clearly it’s still broken.
.@elonmusk This is INSANE. I know you don’t control everything but @SteveDaines shouldn’t be suspended over this. Hunting is perfectly legal in the US. Hunters, like anglers, fund > 60% of conservation funding in this country. Daines’ pic is tasteful and not graphic. https://t.co/4uFckK4smk
— Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) February 7, 2023
Attention: @ElonMusk & @TwitterSupport — someone at Twitter suspended a government account because of a hunting profile pic
— Nick Flor 🥋+🇺🇸 (@ProfessorF) February 7, 2023
There is absolutely no logical reason whatsoever for Daines to be punished for something like this, particularly considering the sort of content that some other accounts regularly post on Twitter.
.@elonmusk why are hunting pictures (done after the animal is already dead) pulled down but @peta is allowed to post videos of animals being slaughtered?
Talk about pushing an agenda.
— Beth Baumann (@eb454) February 7, 2023
No kidding.
The old censorship regime isn’t fully rooted out. https://t.co/EhKY3vU7Xr
— Ranjit Singh (@AuthorSingh) February 7, 2023
Musk has done a lot to restore some semblance of sanity to Twitter operations, but clearly there’s still a ways to go.
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Update:
Elon Musk has weighed in on the matter and says the issue’s “being fixed”:
This is being fixed. Policy against showing blood in profile pic is being amended to “clearly showing blood without clicking on the profile pic”.
The intent is to avoid people being forced to see gruesome profile pics.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2023
Looks like Musk made good on that:
I’m free! Thanks, @elonmusk. https://t.co/reDuCwf4Q2
— Steve Daines (@SteveDaines) February 7, 2023
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