Actor James Woods is accusing Twitter of targeting him and locking him out of his account after he tweeted an anti-Democrat meme and refused to take it down.
Woods said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey ‘smothered’ his rights for free speech when he blocked the Casino star from accessing his account over a July tweet appearing to attack liberals.
‘Free speech is free speech – it’s not Jack Dorsey’s version of free speech,’ he told the Associated Press. ‘The irony is Twitter accused me of affecting the political process, when in fact, their banning of me is the truly egregious interference.’
This July 20 tweet got actor James Woods locked out of his Twitter account
Woods (left) accused Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey (right) of targeting him because of his following and because he’s a conservative
‘Because now, having your voice smothered is much more disturbing than having your vocal chords slit. If you want to kill my free speech, man up and slit my throat with a knife, don’t smother me with a pillow,’ he added.
The post that got Woods banned claimed to come from a Democratic group and encouraged men to stay home and let women vote.
‘We’re making a woman’s vote worth more by staying home,’ the meme read, using the hashtags #Letwomendecide and #NoMenMidterm.
Woods captioned it: ‘Pretty scary that there is a distinct possibility this could be real. Not likely, but in this day and age of absolute liberal insanity, it is at least possible’.
The actor’s post ‘liked’ more than 6,000 times and re-tweeted over 2,000 times.
Woods was locked out his account after someone reported the tweet. The conservative actor, who has 1.73million Twitter followers, told the AP that Twitter told him the post had the ‘potential to be misleading in a way that could impact an election’.
He said when he refused to take it down, the social networking site locked him out of his account.
Woods, who is a Trump supporter, said he thinks he was targeted because of his large following and because of his political views. Woods said his girlfriend re-tweeted the post to her followers and was not locked out of her account.
‘I wish this were about an unknown Twitter user so that I could be even more passionate about it,’ he said. ‘This is not about a celebrity being muzzled. This is about an American being silenced — one tweet at a time.’
Woods girlfriend Sara Miller said the actor will not delete the tweet and said the site needs to #FreeJamesWoods
Donald Trump Jr jumped to Woods’ defense accusing Twitter of silencing strong conservative voices
In an email sent to friends and shared on Twitter by Woods’ girlfriend Sara Miller, the actor accused Twitter of trying to purge conservatives.
‘The reason I’m sending this to you is that, liberal or conservative, I know every single one of you agrees that this muzzle on free speech is a cancer that, if allowed to metastasize, will destroy this nation and everything it stands for,’ Woods wrote to his friends.
Miller also tweeted that Woods would not be removing the tweet. n
‘If you follow Jimmy, the odds of him deleting a tweet because “Big Brother” @Jack ordered it are less than winning the lottery twice in one day AFTER getting struck by lightning. If the tone of this tweet sounds familiar, guess who’s standing over my shoulder … #FreeJaamesWoods,’ she wrote.
Donald Trump Jr also hopped on Twitter to defend Woods, writing that there was nothing wrong with his tweet and the social networking site is using it as an ‘excuse to silence a strong conservative voice’.