Twitter permanently suspended Project Veritas' account and temporarily locked co-founder James O'Keefe's account over tweets that contained links to a video that briefly shows the home address of a Facebook executive.
The organization on Wednesday released a video of reporter Christian Hartsock confronting Facebook Vice President of Product Management Guy Rosen outside of his home after the social media executive returned from a jog. The video briefly allowed viewers to see the numbers of Rosen's home address, which Twitter informed Project Veritas in an email was a violation of their rules against posting private information.
''You may not publish or post other people's private information without their express authorization and permission,'' the email said, according to TheWrap.
O'Keefe told TheWrap in a statement that he was ''wrestling'' with the decision of whether to delete the tweets, but later issued a statement that he would not delete the them.
He tweeted "I'M BACK" with the hashtag #IAmProjectVeritas late Thursday on his personal account, after Twitter unlocked it. But the Project Veritas account is "permanently suspended," Twitter said.
''What I'm trying to understand is, what about what we did is quote 'posting private information?''' O'Keefe asked TheWrap in a phone interview.
''Reporters with microphones [and] cameras engage in reporting activities on the streets all the time in residential communities, so I'm trying to understand what Twitter considers violating their rules against posting private information. Does Twitter consider reporting information the public has a right to know private information? This is quite the Rubicon we're crossing if Twitter wants to ban this particular piece of information.''
In a public statement issued late Friday, Project Veritas promised to continue exposing corruption, saying: "Twitter thought they could stop him, but they just don’t understand how resilient James is. ... If anything, Twitter merely accomplished proving him right when Project Veritas exposed their corrupt and targeted censorship several times over the last few years."