Twitter stands by temporarily suspending Fox's Hegseth for posting Pensacola terrorist's manifesto

Twitter is standing by its decision to temporarily suspend Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth after he posted the Pensacola terrorist's manifesto on the social media platform.

Hegseth, 39, was temporarily banned on the social media platform over the weekend for sharing the manifesto of Saudi national Mohammed Alshamrani, who killed three people and injured 12 more when he opened fire at Navy Station Pensacola on Friday.

The Fox News host revealed the suspension on Instagram, where he posted a photo of the tweet that got him suspended with the caption, "Yesterday, I was BANNED from [Twitter] — because I posted a screen shot of the terrorist from Florida tweet his Islamist motivations. That's it, a screen shot of a terrorist in his own words. If they can ban me, they will ban anyone. We need to fight back. Heck, I posted the terrorist screen shoot on this post too, so stay tune for [Instagram] banning me too," he went on. "Big tech does the bidding of the Left, especially to include anyone who speaks truth about the threat of radical Islam."

A Twitter representative defended the platform's decision to ban Hegseth, who is a former Amy National Guard officer, telling the Washington Examiner that posting the manifesto is a violation of the Twitter rules and added that they enforce their policies "judiciously and impartially" for all Twitter users. They declined to comment on the length of Hegseth's suspension.

According to Twitter's "Terrorism and violent extremism policy," no user is allowed to "threaten or promote terrorism or violent extremism," and they list four examples that violate the policy:

• engaging in or promoting acts on behalf of a terrorist organization or violent extremist group;
• recruiting for a terrorist organization or violent extremist group;
• providing or distributing services (e.g., financial, media/propaganda) to further a terrorist organization’s or violent extremist group’s stated goals; and
• using the insignia or symbols of terrorist organizations or violent extremist groups to promote them.

Alshamrani's social media accounts, which are no longer active, showed anti-Israel posts, and he had posted a quote from Osama bin Laden. His manifesto accused the United States of having "turned into a nation of evil," however he added that he's not "against you for just being American," but "I hate you because every day you [are] supporting, funding and committing crimes not only against [M]uslims, but also humanity."