By Anna ZeiglerIn the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s elections, the New York Post was locked out of its Twitter account (@nypost). The Posts’ sin? Refusing to delete tweets related to their expose on Hunter Biden. The Post refused to delete the six tweets flagged by Twitter; Twitter claimed, without evidence, the tweets violated the social media site’s policy on hacked materials.
On Tuesday of this week, Election Day, I, via my Twitter account (@ajzeigler), commented on a Post piece titled ‘CDC says people sick with COVID-19 can break quarantine to vote in-person.’ Being a teacher who is meticulous about sources and citations, I immediately visited the CDC’s own website to check out the claims made in the Post piece. What I read Tuesday remains on the CDC’s website today. Listed under the heading, ‘Tips for Voters to Reduce Spread of COVID-19,’ this can be found: ‘Voters have the right to vote, regardless of whether they are sick or in quarantine.’ What follows is advice on how to protect poll workers and others as best as possible if you opt to go vote while you are sick with COVID.
No disinformation, just information.
I’ve had my Twitter account since 2009, and this is my first ever run-in with the social media giant and their increasingly arbitrary rules. Via email, Twitter informed me my tweet repeating information I found on the CDC’s own website was flagged for violating Twitter’s policy on sharing misleading information about voting.
I don’t believe the Post has been suspended (again) for their piece which states exactly what my tweet does, namely that the CDC encouraged those with COVID to break quarantine to vote. I have shared the CDC’s website with Twitter in an effort to demonstrate my tweet only repeats what the CDC’s own website advertises, namely steps for COVID-positive people to take should they decide to go vote. The specific wording in my tweet is as follows: ‘. . . the CDC has encouraged those ill with COVID to break quarantine to go vote . . .’ By providing COVID-positive people with specific information as to how they might break quarantine, it is fair and accurate to say the CDC encouraged them to do so.
I have one living grandparent. My maternal grandfather is 94. I haven’t hugged his neck in over eight months. He lives in an assisted living home with a litany of rules in place about when he can leave, who can visit when and for how long, etc. I understand COVID is a serious and sometimes fatal virus. I had COVID about a month ago, and it kept me in bed for about a week. I understand the reason for all the rules. What I do not understand, and what I pointed out on Twitter (and was subsequently locked out of my account for highlighting) is the arbitrariness of it all. The CDC, along with so many other supposed experts, continue to beclown themselves.
In June of this year I wrote about the quarantine exemptions for those rioting and looting in America’s streets. People were told they could not say an in-person goodbye to dying loved ones, they could not visit elderly parents, they could not mourn and bury their dead while surrounded by friends and family, yet suddenly protests were fine, even praised as necessary by some. I fully understand the importance of voting. What I do not understand is disallowing healthy people from visiting and comforting sick, dying, or elderly loved ones and then turning around and explaining to those who know they are COVID-positive how they can ‘safely’ vote in a public setting teeming with people.
To see the CDC explaining to COVID-positive people what steps they should take in order to break quarantine to go vote brought the summer’s hypocrisy to the forefront of my mind. Pointing out baffling, often hypocritical COVID guidelines issued by the CDC has resulted in my first Twitter suspension. Inspired by the Post, I have opted to appeal the suspension rather than simply delete my tweet. I don’t know how this will all shake out, but I will use the time I am not tweeting to read some Orwell.
Follow Anna on Twitter @ajzeigler…if you still can.
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