Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Far-right activist Laura Loomer said she was suspended for 12 hours on X following a clash with its billionaire owner Elon Musk and the MAGA base over highly skilled foreign workers.<\/p>\n
Loomer said in a post Friday afternoon that she was temporarily booted from the social media site for \u201craising concerns and speaking the truth about the technocratic takeover of our country and the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can you call yourself a \u2018free speech absolutist\u2019 and then punish someone by restricting their speech?\u201d Loomer wrote<\/a>. \u201cWe need to have an honest conversation about Big Tech influence over MAGA.\u201d<\/p>\n Loomer said X also removed her blue checkmark and deactivated her subscriptions. Users can get paid by X for their posts by offering subscriptions to their feeds but the content must be in compliance with X\u2019s rules<\/a>, which Loomer violated, according to her post.<\/p>\n The online brawl started<\/a> after Loomer criticized President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s pick for artificial intelligence adviser \u2014 Sriram Krishnan, a former partner at venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz who was born in India. Loomer took issue with Krishnan\u2019s previous support for allowing more highly-skilled immigrants to enter the United States. She later fired off a slew of posts at Musk alongside claims that highly-skilled immigrants don\u2019t have “running water or toilet paper.”<\/p>\n Loomer was previously banned from several social media sites<\/a> in 2020, before Musk owned the platform. She has a history of spreading far-right conspiracy theories<\/a> and anti-immigrant views. Loomer has a direct line to Trump and traveled with him to a presidential debate in September.<\/p>\n Musk, who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump\u2019s reelection, bought the social media company then known as Twitter in 2022, in part because he said the company blocked users too aggressively. Part of his mission with controlling the platform, he said at the time, was to foster a space for free speech and open debate.<\/p>\n Trump himself has yet to weigh in as the online rift has boiled over into the public view, though a spokesperson for his transition team pointed to an X post<\/a> written by incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller that cited a 2020 speech from Trump about American innovation.<\/p>\n But the brouhaha between Trump\u2019s backers in Silicon Valley and the anti-immigrant MAGA base reflects some key challenges for today\u2019s Republican Party: the coalition that helped give Trump a second term won\u2019t always get along.<\/p>\n Musk has not commented directly on Loomer\u2019s suspension, but he posted “a reminder”<\/a> that the algorithm automatically minimizes the reach of a user if they’re repeatedly blocked or muted by other credible accounts.<\/p>\n \u201cLoomer is trolling for attention. Ignore.\u201d Musk wrote on X.<\/p>\n