Twitter Suspends Whistleblower, DeSantis Critic Rebekah Jones

FLORIDA — Rebekah Jones, whistleblower, outspoken Gov. Ron DeSantis critic and data scientist who built the state’s now defunct COVID-19 dashboard, was suspended from Twitter on Monday.

Jones has been prolific on the social media platform throughout the pandemic, especially after being fired from her job with the Florida Department of Health in early May 2020. While she claims she was fired for refusing to manipulate coronavirus data to support the state’s reopening, DeSantis maintains she was fired for insubordination.

She went on to create her own coronavirus dashboard, Florida COVID Action, and regularly criticized DeSantis and his administration on social media.

Jones’ home was raided in December by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents. In January, accused of using the state messaging system to encourage people “to speak up,” she was arrested and charged with a third-degree felony.

She eventually was granted whistleblower status by the state Office of Inspector General May 28, which provides her with some legal protections.

On Monday, her Twitter account was wiped clean of all content and has the statement “account suspended” posted to it. It also states that “Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules,” though it didn’t specify which rule she broke.

Forrest Saunders, the Florida state capitol reporter for E.W. Scripps, tweeted Monday afternoon that Jones told him the suspension is because of her “overzealous” sharing of an in-depth Miami Herald article about what she saw behind the scenes while working at the Department of Health, her work during the pandemic and her arrest. She expects her account to “be returned shortly,” Saunders said.

Jones said she was suspended for “platform manipulation and spam,” the Miami Herald reported. She filed an appeal with Twitter and told the Herald her suspension “was clearly an auto-lock feature against spamming.”

DeSantis’ spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, alleges Jones was suspended for buying Twitter followers.

“She was suspended because she broke a clear rule against buying followers (platform manipulation) and — all evidence points to this — hijacking the accounts of unsuspecting users to make them follow her,” Pushaw tweeted from her personal account.

She added, “The Typhoid Mary of COVID-19 disinformation no longer has a platform to spread defamatory conspiracy theories. Long overdue.”

In an article for Forbes, Dr. Augustine Fou, a fraud researcher, wrote “there was clearly a concentrated surge in new follower activity for” Jones’ Twitter account. “A family of apps called ‘Round Year Fun’” was used to quickly add nearly 21,000 followers for her account, he said.

“What is not known is whether Rebekah Jones purchased the followers herself, or whether it was a false-flag campaign meant to discredit her (someone else purchased the followers and directed them at her account to make it appear she broke Twitter’s rules,)” Fou added.

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