Twitter Suspends Donald Trump Jr.’s Account For Sharing COVID-19 ‘Misinformation’ With Hydroxychloroquine Clip
Twitter has suspended Donald Trump Jr.’s account for sharing a video about hydroxycholorquine that the social media platform deemed “misleading.”
On Tuesday morning, Republican strategist Andrew Surabian claimed that Twitter had suspended the account of the president’s oldest son for tweeting footage about the anti-malarial treatment that Trump has long promoted as a cure for COVID-19. Surabian then said that the suspension was an assault on free speech.
However, the @TwitterComms account denied that Trump Jr. had been “permanently suspended,” and stated that instead his Twitter had been placed under “limited functionality” for 12 hours for violating its rules about sharing misinformation about COVID-19.
This account has not been permanently suspended. Per the screenshot, the Tweet requires deletion because it violates our rules (sharing misinformation on COVID-19), and the account will have limited functionality for 12 hours. More in our rules: https://t.co/0wHWVV5QS4 https://t.co/0gq7rlaNw7
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) July 28, 2020
As The Seattle Times reported, on Monday night, a clip began circulating on Twitter that showed a group of people standing in front of what appeared to be the Supreme Court building. The video identified the people as doctors, and the footage focused on the testimony of Stella Immanuel, who received a medical license in Texas last November, according to state records.
In the clip, Immanuel gave advice that contradicts what the medical community has generally agreed upon as being necessary to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
“You don’t need a mask… We don’t need to be locked down,” she said.
She then went on to say that there’s a cure for the coronavirus already here in America: the anti-malarial drug.
In fact, there is no cure for COVID-19. As for hydroxychloroquine, though it had shown early promise in the fight against the pandemic, multiple studies involving its efficacy have been scrapped due to the drug’s dangers.
Immanuel, however, claimed to have treated 350 patients sickened by the pathogen, and claims that she treated them with a combination of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and the antibiotic Zithromax, and that none of them died. She even claims that she gives it to patients prophylactically, according to Fox News.
Twitter began pulling the clip from all accounts that had posted it, including that of President Donald Trump. Indeed, on Monday night, the POTUS posted several links to articles about the unproven treatment; many remain up, but clips from the video appear to have been taken down.
This is not the first time that Twitter has had to apply its own rules about misleading statements to accounts affiliated with the Trump family. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Donald Trump has claimed that mail-in voting would lead to a fraudulent election. Twitter has added a fact-checking disclaimer to the tweets.
