Twitter said that it ordered the president’s son to delete a misleading tweet featuring a viral video showing a group of doctors making misleading and false claims about the coronavirus pandemic.
Donald Trump Jr. appeared on Fox News to respond to Twitter’s actions. He said he wasn't endorsing the claims in the video, but labelled it a "must-watch" because it ran contrary to a narrative "they've been force-feeding us for a little while."
He went on to accuse Twitter of hypocrisy for censoring his tweet while Chinese officials are able to post "disinformation" about the coronavirus with no consequences. "I've been saying this for a long time," the president’s eldest son added, "I wrote my first book about justice and censorship coming from the big tech giants from California (…) If they are censoring my account, they are censoring others and they've been trying to do this for a while.”
“Tweets with the video are in violation of our covid-19 misinformation policy,” a spokeswoman for Twitter told The Washington Post. As a consequence, tweets featuring the video must be deleted. Trump’s account was not suspended, but its functionality will be restricted for 12 hours.
President Trump also shared clips from the video — which claims that masks and shutdowns are not needed to stop the spread of the virus — as he shared 14 tweets over half an hour defending the use of hydroxychloroquine. Twitter removed the videos, deleting several of the tweets that President Trump shared, and added a note to its trending topics warning about the potential risks of hydroxychloroquine use.
Republican politicians and conservative supporters of Trump have accused the companies, of censoring conservative voices and showing bias against Republicans. The social media companies have consistently denied the allegations.
The chair of the Arizona Republican Party, also had her account restricted after tweeting the video, Twitter confirmed. The Arizona party tweeted about the decision, calling it “Election interference!” to restrict the account.
Author: Rachel Lerman, Katie Shepherd, Taylor Telford (Washington Post); Charles Creitz (Fox News)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/28/trump-coronavirus-misinformation-twitter/
https://www.foxnews.com/media/donald-trump-jr-responds-twitter-suspension-hydroxychloroquine