Twitter on Tuesday put limits on the account of Donald Trump Jr. after he shared a viral video containing false medical claims about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus, violating the company’s Covid-19 misinformation policies.
Twitter said Mr. Trump, the son of President Trump, was required to delete the tweet with misinformation; the platform said it would also limit his account’s functionality for 12 hours. “The tweet you referenced was in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” a Twitter spokesman, Ian Plunkett, said. “We are taking action in line with our policy here.”
On Monday evening, President Trump also posted a number of tweets linking to the same video with Covid-19 misinformation, which have since been removed.
The video featured what appeared to be a group of doctors in white coats, standing in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. The doctors made a series of misleading claims, including that hydroxychloroquine could be taken to prevent getting the virus.
It was the most recent example of the misinformation that has spread about the coronavirus, at times shared by the president and others in the White House. Facebook and YouTube removed versions of the video on Monday evening. But it racked up more than 16 million views on Facebook and was the second most engaged post before it was taken down by the social network.
Source link