FL-13: Twitter Rules Against Anna Paulina Luna in 2020 FEC Complaint over Verified Check Mark and Luna Drops Lawsuit Against FEC on November 15

Anna Paulina Luna and Donald Trump

Luna’s history of Twitter user violations prevented her over 200K followers Twitter account from receiving the coveted blue check mark in spite of winning the Republican nomination in 2020

Luna’s fight for Twitter verification (and check mark that goes with it) started in February of 2020, and included her FEC complaint from October of 2020, lawsuit against FEC in May of 2021 and final dismissal of Lawsuit mid November of 2021

Note from McHenry County Blog: The topic of verification by social media, and the coveted “check mark” which comes with it, to many, separates serious candidates from minor candidates. While many candidates have sought the coveted verification, Big Tech’s rules are not applied equally, and Anna Paulina Luna’s 2020 campaign is an example of a Republican candidate who not only filed, but WON her party’s nomination last year, but was denied verification by Twitter.

Of the seven candidates who sought the Republican nomination in IL-14 in 2020, all six with Twitter accounts were verified by Twitter and received the checkmark, but the standard was not applied universally, and a primary winner saw she was at a disadvantage in her general election race last year.

The potential application for candidates entering the 2022 election cycle is reason why this story about FL-13 being published.

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Anna Paulina Luna

Anna Paulina Luna (R, St. Petersburg) has recently completed a nearly 2-year-long fight for a checkmark from Twitter.

Nearly two years later, including a year-long Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint and a 6 1/2 months-long federal lawsuit, Luna’s Twitter account still does not have the coveted Twitter checkmark of verification.

And she has 203K followers through November of 2021.

On October 22, 2020, Luna’s congressional campaign filed a complaint with the FEC to compel Twitter to grant Luna’s campaign Twitter account with the verification checkmark. The FEC received the 33-page complaint from Luna’s congressional campaign on October 26 of 2020, and initiated an FEC “matter under review” or MUR, tracked under MUR 7832.

On October 26, 2021, after a year-long review including inputs from Twitter, the FEC voted 6-0 to deny Luna the relief she sought from the FEC to compel Twitter to verify her Twitter account @RealAnnaPaulina, given Twitter, in the FEC’s mind, had not violated the Federal Elections Campaign Act.

Twitter responded to the FEC under MUR 7832 on December 14, 2020, and included the following, per an October 28, 2021 story in Business Insider:

“Twitter pointed out that Luna had violated their website’s terms of service several times before becoming a congressional candidate, citing a litany of controversial comments including comparing Hillary Clinton to herpes during a Fox News interview, declaring that Kamala Harris believes that ‘child rape and the slavery of Hispanic women and children is a joke,’ and comparing Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles to ice cream trucks.

“Twitter also pointed to advertisers’ concerns about extremist content as a justification for denying Luna her verification. They noted in particular that Procter and Gamble told Twitter and other companies that they ‘simply will not accept or take the chance that our ads are associated with violence, bigotry or hate.’ “

“Twitter has the right to refuse to verify Florida GOP House candidate Anna Paulina Luna over her history of ‘posting abusive content,’ FEC Says” by Bryan Metzger, 10/28/21

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On June 16, 2021, the FEC issued a preliminary finding exonerating Twitter of any wrongdoing and to dismiss the complaint.

Six months into the FEC complaint, Luna’s congressional campaign filed a federal lawsuit in DC Court against the FEC to compel action on Luna’s complaint.

On October 26, 2021, the FEC implemented the preliminary report, and the MUR 7832 was closed.

On November 15, 2021, after initial response from the FEC on July 9, 2021, Luna and the FEC in a joint decision agreed to dismiss the federal lawsuit without prejudice and a court order.

From the desk of John Lopez: Did Anna Paulina Luna’s past catch up with her and contribute to Twitter denying her candidacy with a verified checkmark badge? The answer appears to be a definite yes.

The Twitter account in question, @RealAnnaPaulina, has 203K followers, but has been meticulously scrubbed of all its content, only going back little over a month in its Twitter timeline.

Given Luna’s past, pre 2020 tweets she posted to her account, which was created in early 2017, included discipline as late as the summer of 2019.

Those Twitter disciplinary actions, based on Twitter’s response to the FEC last December, was enough for Twitter to deny Luna’s main Twitter account the checkmark.

So for 2022, with Luna seen as the clear frontrunner going into the 2022 election cycle in the now open FL-13 race, looks like she’s taking a different approach.

Note the reference to “follow my official campaign account”:

Luna’s 2022 congressional campaign launched a separate campaign Twitter account.

Under @VoteAPL, Luna’s campaign Twitter account should be clean of any Twitter violations.

When Twitter decides to verify all federal campaign accounts, if 2020 was a pattern here in IL-14, it will take place after the filing of petitions in the respective states.

Assuming Luna, when she files her nominating petitions in April for the August 23 Florida primary, has kept her campaign Twitter account clean of violations, it will likely be verified.

That must be the plan, and a lesson for Illinois candidates.

Once petition filing takes place in March for congressional races as well as the gubernatorial primary, assuming the Twitter accounts have kept themselves clean of Twitter rules violations, the checkmark should be forthcoming.

In Luna’s case, she’ll be behind 2020 rival, and 2022 rematch Republican primary opponent Amanda Makki.

Finally, the reason Luna was denied the Twitter checkmark, namely her past tweets from her @RealAnnaPaulina Twitter ID is a good reminder, once again, what a user does under their Twitter ID, it will come back to haunt them as it did with Luna.

And this is before one considers screenshots being taken of questionable tweets, or Facebook or Instagram posts.

If something bad is out there in cyberspace through social media and one is running for elective public office, it will be found and used against them.

External references from the FEC:

  • MUR 7832 including all documents with Anna Paulina Luna campaign’s 2020 complaint can be viewed here
  • Anna Paulina Luna v FEC litigation can be viewed here

Comments

FL-13: Twitter Rules Against Anna Paulina Luna in 2020 FEC Complaint over Verified Check Mark and Luna Drops Lawsuit Against FEC on November 15 — 5 Comments

  1. I don’t care that she does not have a blue check mark and in fact even view her more positively for NOT having it given the nature of Twitter, but the fact that she is dishonest and a MAGA bimbo is what’s repellent to me.

  2. 1. Who is on Twatter on this blog?
    2. Who cares about being on Twatter?
    3. John, please stop posting the creepy eyebrow ex-stripper.

    Re #3 – you live in IL. There are people dumb enough to think the Omicron virus is real and will obviously vote for the stripper. Adjust the letters in Omicron.

    What do you get?

    MORONIC.

    The people believing this BS need to wake up.

    As an aside, the bureaucrats skipped MU and XI in the greek alphabet.

    Why is that?

    Laugh amongst yourselves.

    John are you going to post the dial in number for Ghislaine’s trial on Monday like you did with Kyle’s?

    I think that would be productive.

    I will be listening starting Monday.

  3. 1. Who is on Twatter on this blog?

    2. Who cares about being on Twatter?

    3. John, please stop posting the creepy eyebrow ex-stripper.

    Re #3 – you live in IL.

    There are people dumb enough to think the Omicron virus is real and will obviously vote for the stripper. Adjust the letters in Omicron.

    What do you get?

    MORONIC.

    The people believing this BS need to wake up.

    As an aside, the bureaucrats skipped MU and XI in the greek alphabet. Why is that? Laugh amongst yourselves.

  4. Not on Twitter but I lurk there a little, JT.

    I can understand why candidates would want Twitter.

    It’s an easy way to get a short simple message out to a lot of people for free.

    Donald Trump used Twitter all the time before he got kicked off.

    John used to have a Twitter but it looks like he nuked it.

    Maybe he got a private alt because he still seems really up and up on what’s going on there.

    I think they had a Mu variant a few months ago but people just didn’t care.

    They were originally going to call this “new african variant” Nu but then they changed the script and called it Omicron while skipping Xi.

    One of their copes is that Xi isn’t pronounced the same way, but if that’s so it makes them look even more stupid and politically correct because they’re admitting they’re afraid of using something that looks the same but isn’t even pronounced the same way hahaha

    This is the “Cancel Christmas” variant.

    This is the “New Mail in Voting” variant.

    This is the “Not enough people are getting boosters quick make something up” variant.

    This is the “Let’s short some stocks” variant.

    This is the “Let’s make up a story to cover for vaccine deaths” variant.

    This is the “Let’s buy the dip” variant.

    Not sure it’ll work the way they want it to.

    Americans don’t like silly words like omicron and people are just sick of this and getting alert to the lies.

    Maxwell case probably won’t get much media attention at all, so I would second your request for this blog to mention it and give occasional updates. How is it political? Because it implicates TONS of politicians, royal families, bankers, CEOs, and powerful people.

    I’m thinking because of the long weekend with the holiday, there is going to be a huge “spike” in COVID numbers which will just be like 5 days of numbers (which are garbage numbers to begin with, but I digress) rolled into 1 and they’re going to try to push this “new variant” thing.

    TBH this gay COVID story arc is getting REALLY boring.

    Can they switch to fake weather events or fake alien invasion or a good ol fashion hot war?

    Maybe they’ll do a stock crash?

    The end of the week was pretty bad.

    Is the bear going to wander further out of the cave this coming week?

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