Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) announced on Wednesday that his personal Twitter account had been suspended. He had not been given an explanation as to the reason why.

My personal Twitter account – @BasedMikeLee – has been suspended. Twitter did not alert me ahead of time, nor have they yet offered an explanation for the suspension. My team and I are seeking answers. pic.twitter.com/1llVm4fVu3

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) March 1, 2023

“My personal Twitter account – @BasedMikeLee– has been suspended. Twitter did not alert me ahead of time, nor have they yet offered an explanation for the suspension. My team and I are seeking answers,” Lee said.

After a lot of comments about it on Twitter, Lee’s account later appeared to be back around 2:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Thanks to all who assisted in operation #Free@basedMikeLee. Still no explanation from @Twitter as to what happened.

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) March 1, 2023

“Thanks to all who assisted in operation #Free@basedMikeLee. Still no explanation from @Twitter as to what happened,” Lee tweeted from that personal account.

Reporters noted that Lee on Wednesday morning tweeted at Japanese Prime Minister calling for the return of imprisoned Navy Lt. Ridge Alkonis, who is serving prison time for his role in a deadly car crash.

“I didn’t say anything that’s worthy of suspension, so I don’t know,” Lee added about the tweet in question.

Here’s what he tweeted about that situation.

.@kishida230, you have 40 minutes left. Hand Lt. Ridge Alkonis over to the U.S. Navy. Now.

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) March 1, 2023

The last tweet from Lee’s account before the suspension quoted an article, “It’s not exactly a sign of a healthy democratic discourse that it’s virtually impossible to ask a critical question about the United States’ role in the Ukraine-Russia conflict without being smeared as a Putin apologist or an ‘isolationist.’”

“It’s not exactly a sign of a healthy democratic discourse that it’s virtually impossible to ask a critical question about the United States’ role in the Ukraine-Russia conflict without being smeared as a Putin apologist or an ‘isolationist.’” https://t.co/IJuM6y0u0Z

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) March 1, 2023

The point that Lee made before he was suspended is a good one. It’s a huge problem and it isn’t just about Ukraine. It’s about COVID, vaccines, or any one of a number of other things. If you don’t go along with whatever the current narrative is, then some will try to shut you down. That’s not a sign of a healthy society that protects freedom of speech. How ironic just as he makes that very valid point, his account gets suspended. It’s troubling when a sitting senator has an account taken down for no identifiable reason. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) was suspended last month for “graphic violence” for posting a hunting picture with his wife in which there was no graphic violence. At least that was an ostensible reason, albeit a bad and poorly applied reason in Daines’ case.

Now it turns out that the reason Lee’s account was suspended appears to be that they thought it was a non-labeled parody account, according to Twitter head Elon Musk.

His personal account (@BasedMikeLee) was incorrectly flagged as impersonation, which is not totally crazy, since it is based

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 1, 2023

That’s pretty funny that a real account is mistaken for a parody account, likely because of the account being “@BasedMikeLee.” Normally, you wouldn’t see that in a real account. I suspect that Lee was trying to be funny with that, but that humor went over the head of someone at Twitter.

But Lee still should have been given a reason as to why, so he could properly answer.