Washington: Twitter Inc said on Tuesday it had restricted Donald Trump Jr’s ability to tweet from his account for 12 hours, after it required him to delete a post that violated the social media site’s policy on coronavirus misinformation.
The eldest son of US President Donald Trump posted a since-deleted tweet on Monday with a viral video of doctors talking about the drug hydroxychloroquine.
The video was posted by others on Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc-owned YouTube and taken down for breaking those sites’ rules on Covid-19 misinformation after racking up tens of millions of views.
US President Donald Trump shared several versions of the video that went viral with his 84 million followers.
Created by right-wing publication Breitbart, the video showed people dressed in white lab coats staging a press conference outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C, reports CNBC.
They claimed the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is “a cure for Covid” and “you don’t need a mask” to slow the spread of coronavirus.
By Monday night, the video racked up 20 million views on Facebook, according to NBC News.
“This virus has a cure, it’s called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax. You don’t need masks, there is a cure,” claimed the video.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already ended the emergency use authorization of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, saying the drugs were “unlikely to be effective in treating Covid-19.”
“We’ve removed this video for sharing false information about cures and treatments for Covid-19,” a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying.
A Twitter spokesperson said it is taking action on tweets containing the video.
“From the very beginning of the pandemic, we’ve had clear policies against Covid-19 misinformation and are committed to continue providing timely and helpful information at this critical time,” added a YouTube spokesperson.
“They’re censoring my account. They’re censoring others,” Donald Trump Jr. said in an interview with Fox News Channel later on Tuesday.
“This never happens to someone saying something that benefits the left. It only hurts conservatives,” he said, adding that he had posted the video because it seemed “very contrary to the narrative that they’ve been force-feeding us.”
