A slew of celebrities as well as other assorted left-wing activists have issued calls to “free” comedian Kathy Griffin after she was banned from Twitter for impersonating billionaire Elon Musk.
On Sunday, Griffin earned herself a Twitter suspension on Sunday when she impersonated billionaire Elon Musk by changing her profile name while employing his exact profile picture, as Breitbart News reported.
“Hey complainers and activists. Want to see real activism? Watch this. RT w #VoteBlue,” Griffin tweeted.
Twitter suspended Griffin’s account within an hour.
Kathy Griffin fucked around and quite promptly found out pic.twitter.com/ceFJAQKdj5
— Mike The Mad Scientist ™️ (@MadMikeOfficial) November 6, 2022
Though Elon Musk did not address the Griffin situation directly, he issued a clarification that Twitter will immediately suspend impersonating accounts that do not specifically label themselves parody.
“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying “parody” will be permanently suspended,” he tweeted. “Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning.”
Griffin later returned to the platform by reportedly using her dead mother’s Twitter account, Maggie Griffin.
Comedian Kathy Griffin speaks at “Mea Culpa Live with Michael Cohen” at El Rey Theatre on November 01, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Michael Tullberg/Getty)
“Apologize in advance for all the comments you’re gonna have to read about how ugly I am and they’re probably gonna throw you in there too. Oh by the way this is KG. I’m tweeting from my dead mother’s account. She would not mind,” the tweet from Maggie Griffin’s account read.
Musk’s explanation did not sit well with celebrities and other progressives, who believed that Elon Musk unfairly discriminated against Griffin and sought to silence one of his critics.
“Kathy Griffin is a comedian and a fierce smart activist I guess there is no such thing as free speech after all on this site,” tweeted Rosanna Arquette.
— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) November 7, 2022
1) 9 days ago, 2) yesterday 3) today. We have fun pic.twitter.com/eTKAp8PBuK
— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) November 7, 2022
Hi. I’m @elonmusk (THIS IS PARODY) and I’m going to suspend Kathy Griffin for a joke the same day I reinstate Kanye West because I’m an antisemitic, homophobic, broken, un-loved prick (NOT parody).
— Richard Marx (@richardmarx) November 7, 2022
Kathy Griffin impersonates @ElonMusk and gets permanently suspended forever and ever and ever
Until she pays $8
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) November 7, 2022
I’ll probably get banned for this, because free speech ends right at @elonmusk doorstep. He is now waging war on public figures who are trying to show him how easy it is to imitate a current public figures. So he permanently bans Kathy Griffin, then insults her. Yet, score of…1
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) November 7, 2022
….public figures, he bans people like Griffin, but then bows tp a guy named after cat feces. Yah, that will bring in the advertisers, @elonmusk. And if I disappear momentarily, just know it’s because, like Kathy Griffin, I used free speech against the worlds dumbest hypocrite.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) November 7, 2022
It’s not about Musk suspending Kathy Griffin from Twitter (or anyone else who impersonates him for that matter).
It’s about making you just uncomfortable enough to avoid tweets critical of him or posting that next expose on him.
That’s the goal and that’s fascism.
— Lindsey Boylan (@LindseyBoylan) November 7, 2022
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