Twitter removes Missouri lawmaker’s tweet about shooting looters for violating rules

Twitter has removed a Missouri lawmaker’s tweet regarding shooting looters after it was found to violate the social media company’s policies.

The tweet by state Rep. Tony Lovasco, a St. Charles County Republican, said, “Looters deserve to be shot. But not by government. #2A”

The tweet was swiftly condemned online, and the top Democrat in the Missouri House said “an elected official who advocates for extrajudicial murder” was “unfit to hold public office.”

In an interview Saturday, Lovasco said Twitter sent him a notification on Friday evening alerting him that his tweet was removed. Lovasco had the option of appealing Twitter’s decision or taking down the tweet of his own accord and having his account restored after 12 hours, he said. He chose to remove the tweet.

“I’m realizing that there definitely is a way to read what I said to mean something different, which is not what I wanted,” Lovasco said. “... If I had to go back, I would have spelled it out quite a bit more.”

Lovasco tweeted after protests broke out around the country in response to the video of a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of an unarmed, handcuffed black man named George Floyd. Floyd, who told the officer he couldn’t breathe, was found by medics at the scene without a pulse. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired and was charged with third-degree murder on Friday.

In Minneapolis, a police precinct burned to the ground and several businesses were destroyed.

Lovasco had previously said his tweet was in response to President Donald Trump’s comment offering military support to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and tweeting early Friday, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

Lovasco said it was unacceptable for the military to be used in that way. His tweet was not calling for people to be killed.

“However, my point was I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people (who), in the process of looting, get shot by business owners,” Lovasco said. “I have zero sympathy for people who would use the murder of an unarmed man as an excuse to steal a big screen (TV). This is not what this is about.”

Trump’s tweet was hidden by Twitter for ‘glorifying violence’ and it was the first time the company had applied a warning to a public figure’s post.

The day before, Trump had signed an executive order limiting existing legal protections for social media companies for the content posted by third-parties on their sites.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, said Twitter should lose its “immunity” if it chose to “editorialize” “political speech.” The site this week had placed fact-check labels on two of the president’s tweets regarding mail-in ballots, which Twitter deemed could lead to voter confusion, according to The New York Times.

Lovasco said he disagreed with Twitter’s decision to take down the tweet.

“But it’s their company and its their platform,” Lovasco said. “It’s their right to do it, and I’m not going to argue with them.”

Lovasco said he disagrees with Trump and Hawley’s position on modifying or rescinding the statute that protects social media companies from legal liability, known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

“I don’t think Twitter should be regulated,” Lovasco said. “It’s their decision whether they want to censor or remove things based on their own morals or principles. While I might not like some of their choices, it’s their right. The government should stay out of it.”

Lovasco, who was elected in 2018, said he should have been more specific about his point initially. However, he said he is also disappointed that looting has distracted from an important issue: reforming how police officers are treated when they “mess up.”

“I can’t fathom an explanation that makes that officer’s actions OK and the other officers that stood by and did nothing. I think they have a lot to answer for as well,” Lovasco said.

This story was originally published May 30, 2020 at 4:18 PM.