Twitter Restricts Republican Lawmaker’s Anime Parody Video Of Him Attacking AOC, Biden

Twitter restricted a tweet late Monday posted by Republican Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar featuring an anime parody video of him attacking President Joe Biden and Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Gosar tweeted a video Sunday night parodying the opening credits of popular anime show “Attack on Titan,” in which his face and those of Biden and Ocasio-Cortez were edited onto the show’s characters. In one sequence, Gosar’s character, armed with two swords, attacks Ocasio-Cortez’s and Biden’s characters.

Twitter restricted sharing of the video, which had gathered 3.3 million views early Friday, by disabling re-tweets, likes and replies, leaving only quote-tweets enabled for video. The social media company posted a warning label on the tweet saying it violated Twitter’s hateful conduct policy.

“This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about hateful conduct. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible,” the warning label read.

Twitter did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. A Twitter spokesperson told Axios the tweet “violates our hateful conduct policy.”

“As is standard with this notice, engagements with the Tweet will be limited,” the spokesperson said.

It’s not clear which part of Twitter’s hateful conduct guidelines the video violated, though the social media company does prohibit content featuring “images depicting others as less than human.”

The video also featured footage of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and parts of the border wall, as well as footage of what appears to be border patrol agents on horseback and ATVs.

Gosar’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

“Everyone needs to relax,” Gosar’s digital director, Jessica Lycos, told The Washington Post.