“Project Veritas was surprised to learn of this temporary lock out,” Project Veritas’ Mario Balaban told The Post Millennial, “as we were conducting journalism as we always do — by asking questions to powerful people.”
UPDATE: The account was reinstated shortly after the lock out.
Original story follows:
Project Veritas was locked out of their recently regained Twitter account on Friday afternoon. This after having posted a video confronting a YouTube executive for striking videos wherein Veritas had confronted a Pfizer director from their platform.
Alx posted the banning to that warehouse of ideas and discourse, saying "What's going on?" And tagging Twitter's CEO, Twitter Safety, and the new head of Twitter Safety Ella Girwin. YouTube had already struck the video from their platform.
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View on X"Project Veritas was surprised to learn of this temporary lock out," Project Veritas' Mario Balaban told The Post Millennial, "as we were conducting journalism as we always do — by asking questions to powerful people. In this case, a YouTube executive."
"We have appealed and look forward to Elon Musk clearing this situation up," Balaban said.
In that video, Christian Hartsock confronts the Global Head of Trust and Safety Matt Halprin to find out why they banned the videos with the Pfizer director from their platform. Hartsock asked pointed questions about how much Pfizer is paying YouTube to run cover for them.
Halprin continued walking and refused to engage with the Veritas reporter's questions. "You touched me," Halprin said at one point, "that's not something you want to do."
Project Veritas' videos exposing a Pfizer director show him discussing research done by the pharmaceutical giant into gain-of-function research, and the potential impacts on women's menstrual cycles after taking the Covid-19 vaccine.
Veritas, which had been banned from the platform for more than a year before being reinstated by Elon Musk, is one of many accounts that have recently come under fire by the purportedly free speech-based platform in recent weeks.
The message sent by Twitter to Veritas reads: "We've temporarily limited some of your account features," and goes on to say that the account "violated the Twitter Rules."
Those rules, which have seemed obtuse and opaque at times, were meant to be far more transparent under Musk's leadership. Musk purchased the platform in 2022 with the expressed purpose of making it more transparent and upholding free speech and a free press.
The specific violation, per Twitter, was that Veritas was guilty of "violating our rules against abuse and harassment. You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm"
To get their account back, Veritas will have to delete the tweet. Veritas' account will remain locked pending appeal.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
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