Amanda Chase, a Virginia state senator and Republican gubernatorial candidate, said Friday she was partially locked out of her Facebook account following incendiary content she posted after she attended the pro-Trump rally that devolved into a deadly invasion of the U.S. Capitol earlier this week.

The move — which maintains her comments and videos containing conspiracy theories but prevents her from posting new content — stands as a rare rebuke to Virginia Republicans who have indulged the president’s imaginary thinking online.

“Facebook continues to restrict free speech,” Chase wrote to supporters on Friday. “Because what I have to say does not fit their narrative, my ‘Senator Amanda Chase’ page has been silenced for 60 days.”

On Wednesday night, Chase told supporters in a 16-minute video that she attended the fatal demonstration in Washington because, “I, too, believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.” She said she stood with “crowds of patriots” in Washington to hear President Trump speak, and that, “I support peaceful protest but I’m telling you when you back the people of Virginia and across the United States of America into a corner you wind up with a revolution.”

Chase also cast doubt on who stormed the Capitol, saying without evidence that “I was told earlier this morning to beware of people dressing as Trump supporters who really weren’t Trump supporters. Who were really Antifa and BLM agents of destruction.”

Those claims have largely been debunked. On Friday, federal prosecutors said there was no indication that anti-fascist or Black Lives Matter protesters were involved in the chaos at the Capitol.

Neither Chase nor Facebook responded to questions from DCist/WAMU. However, the suspension follows Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that he would block Trump from posting for at least two weeks because of the “use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.” As with Chase, the block only applies to future content, and leaves previous posts online.

Reached Friday, Republican Party of Virginia spokesman John March deflected a request for comment on Chase’s online rhetoric.

“Well, if we’re going to be policing what everybody does, then you should ask the [Democratic Party of Virginia] if they agree with everything Lee Carter says. I don’t have a comment for you,” he said, referring to the socialist state delegate and Democratic gubernatorial candidate from Manassas.

March’s comments were largely in line with a number of other Republican elected leaders in Virginia.

Del. Dave LaRock (R-Loudoun) attended Wednesday’s rally as well. In a message to supporters, he condemned the forced entry into the Capitol, and circulated unproven claims that the intruders were “a small element who likely infiltrated this patriotic group for the purpose of inciting violence.”

On Friday LaRock told DCist/WAMU thatFacebook had not censored that post, but he would regard it as “a badge of honor” if the company banned him. “I don’t see any danger in circulating my opinion,” he said. “‘Who likely.’ Those two words make it very clear that I’m speculating.”

LaRock added that he assigned Trump “no blame whatsoever” in the fatal events of the day. “No blame whatsoever to Trump,” he repeated. “I think that’s just political posturing and grandstanding and I think it’s ridiculous.”

Some national Republican figures have singled out Trump’s role in riling up the demonstrators. In a speech Wednesday, Trump told a crowd of thousands, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”

Former Attorney General William Barr told the AP that “orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable.”

Meanwhile, the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus has called on Chase to resign. “She galvanized domestic terrorists who violated the United States Capitol on Wednesday afternoon through riots, destruction, and desecration, joining them on their march to Capitol Hill,” it said.

Spokespeople for the Virginia House GOP and VirginiaSenate Republican Caucus did not reply to a question of whether the lawmakers should be censured for their comments.

Jen Golbeck, an expert at the University of Maryland on malicious online behavior, said there is particular peril in public leaders spreading conspiracy theories.

“Elected officials or candidates for office sharing this kind of misinformation amplifies it in a way that makes it seem more legitimate, and makes people who are sharing similar misinformation emboldened to do it in a more public way,” she said.

Although both right- and left-wing users post misinformation online, Golbeck said she noticed Republican leaders were more likely to circulate it.

“There are violent left-wing elements on social media for sure, but we haven’t seen the legitimization of those viewpoints from Democratic elected officials in the same way that we have seen it from Republican elected officials, especially since the [2020] election.”

In Virginia, the Republican Party remains riven by four years of Trump’s polarizing persona. Over the last four years, Democrats have flipped three Congressional districts and took over both chambers of the General Assembly. They also control the governor’s office, giving them strong leverage as the General Assembly opens next week.

“The Republican party in Virginia is in the midst of an identity crisis that has really intensified during the Trump years,” said political scientist Stephen Farnsworth at the University of Mary Washington.

Farnsworth said the party’s primaries tended to favor the base, and not the broader Republican electorate.

“These members of Congress and members of the House of Delegates who are supporting President Trump are facing voters in a primary that is going to be the most conservative 5% of the Virginia electorate,” he said. “Those people are not interested in moderates. They are not interested in compromisers. You cannot run in a general election if you can’t win a party nomination.”

Although the party leadership has said nothing about its elected officers spreading false information, some candidates have taken a different approach.

Chase’s only rival so far for the Republican nomination for governor is former House Speaker Kirk Cox of Colonial Heights. On Wednesday, Cox called on Trump to tell his supporters to leave the Capitol immediately.

“The reality is that Joe Biden is set to become the next President of the United States under our Constitution. The lawless actions taken today are an affront to that process and, therefore, an affront to the republic,” he wrote.

Yet Cox had earlier nodded to Trump’s baseless claims of fraudulent voting, writing in November, “We will count the legal votes, vigorously investigate irregularities and allegations of fraud, allow all sides to observe the process, and rely on the courts to resolve any disputes.”

Farnsworth said Cox was trying to thread the needle of maintaining the base happy while appealing to moderates. However, it will be a high hurdle for Cox, Chase or any other hopeful for governor to clear. No Republican has won a statewide race in once-red Virginia in more than ten years.