Earlier last week, big tech companies including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, censored a press conference and later the video of a conference held in Washington D.C. by physicians who were talking about steps to help cure Coronavirus and improve the atmosphere around the country. The post went viral on Facebook before the social media giant took it down saying, “It violated the community standards guidelines.”
The conference was held with the United States Supreme Court in the background, was organized by a group known as “America’s Frontline Doctors,” with Dr. Simone Gold founding the organization and Republican Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina hosting the conference.
The Livestream and video of the conference racked up over 17 million views on Facebook before it was taken down, and 185,000 concurrent views. Donald Trump Jr shared the video on his personal twitter page and twitter promptly suspended him.
Twitter told the BBC, that they “were taking action in line with our policy,” when they decided to suspend Donald Trump Jr. The suspension lasted for twelve hours, in which twitter sent him a message titled “We’ve limited some of your account features.” Twitter also went onto explain that the post, “Violated COVID-19 misinformation rules.”
Several of the doctors in the video advocated for the use of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and vitamin D, a popular treatment remedy that started making its way around after some patients started having success using it. However, when President Trump started said that he was using hydroxychloroquine, it immediately became politicized including several “doctors,” warning against its usage along with some states like Ohio, even banning the drug from being prescribed to patients.
One of the doctors who appeared in the video, Dr. Simone Gold, was fired from her job later in the week, while other doctors in the video had their character and profession attacked by left-wing media outlets like the BBC who labeled the doctors as “people claiming to be doctors who support Trump.”
Several of the other doctors have had their character questioned for being in the video along with the questioning of their credibility.
Trump Jr spokesman Andy Surbain told CNN, that this is “further proof that big tech is intent on killing free expression online.”
