Tom Fitton suspended from Twitter over something Twitter previously said did not violate its rules

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton has been suspended from Twitter over a tweet containing language that he has repeatedly posted in the past, including months ago when the social media platform determined that the language was not a breach of its rules.

Twitter said in September that it received a complaint regarding a tweet posted on Fitton's account that said, "#Hydroxychloroqine is a safe drug," but the social media platform said that it did not find that the post had violated any rules: "We have investigated the reported content and could not identify any violations of the Twitter Rules (https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311) or German law. Accordingly, we have not taken any action at this time," Twitter said.

But now Twitter has suspended Fitton for tweeting the same message that it previously said did not violate its rules, a message which Fitton has posted repeatedly on the platform. Fitton says that even if he deletes the tweet he would remain locked out of his account for seven days. 

During a phone call with Just the News, he described it as "disturbing" that a government watchdog organization's leader "would be targeted for abusive censorship like this."

Just the News attempted to reach out to Twitter for comment but has not yet received a response.

On Friday evening Twitter "permanently suspended" President Trump's account and the company's stock closed down on Monday by more than 6%.

"Without any warning I have been suspended for at least 7 days from Twitter for posting a straight-forward tweet about #Hydroxychloroquine," Fitton wrote in a Monday Instagram post. "I had posted this exact tweet repeatedly (once or twice a week) and, in September, Twitter specifically found that it was not in violation of its rules. Nevertheless, they locked me out my account without warning and told me that even if I took down now the supposedly offending post I would still be locked out for 7 days. I have 'appealed' but we all know that this is not about HCQ, it is about finding a pretext to silence another leading conservative voice," Fitton wrote.