Twitter Suspends Another Conservative's Twitter Account After Alleged Leftest 'Spam' Attack

Questions are swirling surrounding the reasons Twitter suspended conservative Chris Loesch's Twitter account (this is at least the second conservative account to be suspended this month). Loesch, a music producer and the husband of CNN contributor and Big Journalism Editor Dana Loesch, saw his account close down three times on Sunday.

The Washington Times has more:

He was apparently targeted by leftist users who utilized the "Block & Report Spam" function to trigger the social media account's automatic spam algorithm. He was notified of his suspension via an email from Twitter claiming it was due to multiple unsolicited mentions to other users. "You will need to change your behavior to continue using Twitter," the email admonished. [...]

Supporters initiated by fellow conservatives Ben Howe and Jerome Hudson began sending tweets with a "#FreeChrisLoesch" hashtag. Retweets soon had it trending as one of the top 10 messages being sent in the United States. A couple of hours later, his account was reinstated only to be mysteriously suspended again within an hour. So the campaign was renewed, this time asking Twitter to "#FreeChrisLoeschAgain".

(Related: Twitter Suspends Account of Group that Created Viral ‘If I Wanted America to Fail’ Video During Earth Day, Reinstates at Midnight Without Explanation)

Obviously, Chris is claiming that he didn't do anything wrong and that the attacks and the subsequent suspension were unwarranted. In an interview with The Washington Times, the conservative defended himself.

"I never threatened anyone and am careful about being concise with what I write especially in public," he said. "They were going to make me sign this note that said one more infraction and I would be permanently banned. I wasn't going to do that so I wrote emails to some of their people."

Chris also said that be believes the campaign was kicked off by comments he made in support of his wife. As he stated, he was careful in the wording he used. Tweets following the suspensions seemed to show that some liberals who disagreed with his and his wife's ideology made it a point to target his account.

In an article posted on Big Journalism, Dana responded to the controversy and explained her account of the events that led up to the suspensions:

Earlier this evening my husband, Chris Loesch, had his Twitter account suspended. There have been stories going around of conservatives getting suspended from Twitter over innocuous things while accounts like @KillZimmerman (an account which threatened to kill George Zimmerman) and other such accounts were left active for weeks. After a user remarked about me being raped and murdered, Chris and others defended me.

I'm used to it, it's part of the territory of doing what I do, enduring hate like this daily. Unfortunately, some progressives disliked that Chris pushed back against it as well. His account was suspended, yet this individual's account, and the account of those who say far worse to me and others, are left alone.

It is important to note that the suspensions may be entirely based on an algorithm, as the Times noted. Individuals posting horrific commentary, such as those messages sent to Dana, may not be getting reported by fellow users at the same rate that Chris was in the supposed organized leftist campaign against him. Since algorithms only count certain elements such as the frequency of times reported, the explanation may lay within that realm.

"We've been speaking with someone who works at Twitter and is trying to help us and he's been very helpful," Dana told The Blaze in an e-mail interview. "Unfortunately so many on the left have targeted his account to repeatedly report it, it's making it difficult. That's apparently how much the left despises diverse thought...His account was suspended three times in a span of around 75 minutes."

Needless to say, it seems Twitter may need to adjust the way it handles account suspensions, especially considering that innocent individuals simply exercising their free-speech rights hold the potential to be so easily targeted.

This story has been updated.

(H/T: Washington Times)