ATLANTA (AP) – Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene lambasted social media companies for her temporary suspension from Twitter on Tuesday, calling it a “communist-style attack on free speech.”

Twitter imposed the 12-hour timeout on Monday, saying some of its tweets violated its policy against spreading false information that could cause damage during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Twitter, Facebook and the rest of the Silicon Valley cartel are working hand in hand with the White House to censor Americans,” the Republican of Georgia said in a statement.

Twitter suspended Greene after President Joe Biden urged tech companies to take tougher action against claims of fake vaccines that “kill people.” Twitter has defended its efforts to keep dangerous disinformation about COVID-19 off its site, saying it has deleted thousands of tweets and challenged millions of accounts worldwide.

Greene appears to have been disciplined under the Twitter “strike” system launched in March, using a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify content about the coronavirus that is deceptive enough to cause harm to people. Two or three warnings generate a 12 hour account lockout; four warnings result in a one-week suspension, and five or more warnings can result in a person’s permanent deletion from Twitter.

“We have taken enforcement action on the @mtgreenee account for violating Twitter rules, in particular the Covid-19 Misleading Information Policy,” the company said in an email.

One of Greene’s last tweets that Twitter called misleading claimed that the virus “is not harmful to people who are not obese and those under 65.” According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people under the age of 65 account for nearly 250,000 of U.S. deaths from COVID-19.

Last week, COVID-19 cases in the United States increased by 17,000 nationwide over a 14-day period for the first time since late fall, and an increase in deaths historically follows a peak disease. Much of the worsening of the problem is due to the delta variant first identified in India, which has since spread to the UK and other countries, US surgeon general Vivek Murthy said.

“These big tech companies are auctioning off the Biden regime to restrict our voices and prevent the dissemination of any message that is not approved by the state,” Greene said in the statement. “I won’t back down.”

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