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Twitter suspends account threatening violence on Meghan McCain

It’s not clear who was behind the suspended account.

 

David Gilmour

Tech

Posted on Aug 31, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 7:29 am CDT

Twitter suspended an account on Friday for posting an image that threatened violence against Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Senator John McCain.

The troll had used a picture taken at the Arizona Capitol on Thursday of McCain standing beside her father’s casket grieving, but had edited in a gun aimed at her. The image was accompanied by the words: “America, this one’s for you.”

The image sparked angry backlash online from those mourning the senator, who died on Aug. 25 after a year-long battle with cancer.

McCain’s husband Ben Domenech tweeted directly at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey early Friday morning, after which the user reportedly made their account private.

“Hey @jack, this has been up for half a day. It has been reported 100+ times. No response. Tell me why this is cool by you,” Domenech wrote in a since-deleted post that included a screenshot of the offensive tweet.

By late morning the offending account was suspended.

Twitter’s rules threaten action against those that issue “threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease of an individual or group of people.”

It’s not clear who was behind the suspended account.

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*First Published: Aug 31, 2018, 4:16 pm CDT