James O Keefe, founder of Project Veritas, has been permanently banned from Twitter. The right wing supporters are bombarding the micro-blogging site with tweets stating that the social media platform has taken action against O'Keefe because of his recent CNN Expose.
A message on the account link of O'Keefe stated that the handle was disabled due to violation of Twitter rules. Republicans took to social media to slam CNN as a propaganda, based on O'Keefe's expose. The likes of Donald Trump Jr, Omar Navarro, JD Rucker, Amy Tarkanian took to Twitter to support James O'Keefe and slam CNN.
Twitter Says O'Keefe Violated Rules
Following Twitter's decision, O'Keefe said that he was going to sue the platform. "I am suing Twitter for defamation because they said, I James O' Keefe "Operated fake accounts". This is false, this is defamatory, and they will pay. Section 230 may have protected them before, but it will not protect them from me. The complaint will be filed Monday," said O' Keefe.
CNN is yet to respond to the allegations of propaganda. Earlier, an employee of Project Veritas led by James O'Keefe approached CNN technical director Charlie Chester on dating app Tinder. Reports claim that both had five dates and the Veritas employee secretly recorded Chester speaking about CNN's political leanings.
Currently, Chester's LinkedIn profile has been deleted. He does not have any presence on any of the social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. CNN has not confirmed if Chester is still an employee with the channel. Reports also claim that even if he is an employee, being a technical director, he is in-charge of handling the equipment at the broadcast and has no connection or control over the content of the channel.
O'Keefe had tweeted, before his account got deleted, about the reason behind targeting Chester. "As a technical director, Charlie Chester is fully involved in the day-to-day operations of CNN's Newsroom. He has full access to the culture within the network and explains — on video — how company-wide directives are being implemented," O'Keefe had tweeted.
Chester was recorded as saying, "Look what we did, we [CNN] got Trump out. I am 100 percent going to say it, and I 100 percent believe that if it wasn't for CNN, I don't know that Trump would have got voted out. He also said that he had joined CNN because he "wanted to be a part of that."
With twitter not giving any explanation for banning O'Keefe permanently from its micro-blogging site, netizens have taken to the platform to speculate Twitter took an extreme step to shield CNN. Project Veritas CNN expose came days after the channel targeted Republican Matt Gaetz, making sex-trafficking allegations against him. Gaetz too took to Twitter to slam CNN as a propaganda.
James O'Keefe's Foiled Plans
According to the Business Insider, it can be noted that O'Keefe's sting operations have landed him in trouble numerous times due to illegal activities he carried through his Project Veritas. During 2014 mid-term elections, O'Keefe disguised as a 45-year-old Nick Davis and along with his staff members tried to bait Democratic field staffers in Colorado. He started asking them about voter fraud. He asked the staffer if he could fill out and mail in ballots for other college students who had moved away but still received mail on campus. But to O'Keefe's disappointment staffer had answered in negative and said, "that would be considered voter fraud."
In 2010, O'Keefe had planned to target CNN journalist Abbie Boudreau. O'Keefe had filled the boat with sexually explicit props and was planning to record the two in awkward conversation. But just before their appointment, Boudreau was tipped off about O'Keefe's intentions and the interview was cancelled.
In 2014, O'Keefe tried to dupe Hollywood movie director Josh Fox by releasing a 20-minute long video of Fox receiving money for an anti-fracking movie. Through Project Veritas, O'Keefe had edited Fox's comments and unveiled a misleading video. But Fox had the complete recording of the controversial video and foiled O'Keefe's efforts to embarrass him.
