Twitter withdrew on Monday evening a video posted by US President Donald Trump, which disseminated false information about the new coronavirus, we learned from the social network on Tuesday. The platform also temporarily suspended the Twitter account of his son, Donald Trump Junior, on Tuesday, who rebroadcast the video. "The tweets accompanying the video violate our policy regarding disinformation on Covid-19," a spokesperson told AFP of the video removed from the Republican president's account.
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"This video shared false information"
Twitter declined to provide more information, including how many people watched the video. The latter had already been withdrawn by Facebook on Monday evening, said a spokesperson for the world's leading social network. “We deleted this video because it shared false information about cures and treatments for Covid-19,” the spokesperson explained.
This video showed a group of medics making misleading and false claims about the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Washington Post , more than 14 million people watched it via Facebook. Then, hours later, President Donald Trump tweeted multiple clips of the same video to his 84.2 million subscribers. The video claims, among other things, that masks are not necessary to stop the disease.
For half an hour, according to the American daily, Donald Trump also shared 14 tweets in defense of the use of hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that the president has promoted on several occasions but which several scientific studies have shown to be ineffective in treatment of Covid-19.
The network also sanctions the president's son
Twitter is Donald Trump's main communication platform, but in recent weeks, the network has distanced itself, not hesitating to sanction the president's tweets. For example, Twitter had pinned on June 23 the American president with a mention indicating that one of his tweets "violated" the rules of the network relating to "inappropriate behavior", while leaving the possibility of reading it. Some time before, the platform had reported as misleading remarks by Donald Tump on postal voting, with newspaper articles in support. Then she had pinned another tweet for "apology for violence": "Looting will immediately be greeted by bullets", declared Donald Trump about the demonstrations which sometimes degenerated into riots.
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Twitter also suspended the president's son's account on Tuesday. "This account has not been permanently suspended," said the spokesperson for Twitter. "According to the screenshot, the tweet should be deleted because it violates our rules (on sharing false information about Covid-19), and the account will have limited functionality for 12 hours," he added . In other words, Donald Trump Jr will be restricted in his possibilities to tweet.