Twitter censored a post retweeted by President Donald Trump indicating that the amount of COVID-19 deaths has been greatly exaggerated.
Twitter only appears to censor COVID-19 posts as “misinformation” when it comes from sources it doesn’t like. Meanwhile, the platform has let others off the hook. Trump retweeted a post from Mel Q on August 30 that stated, “only 6% of all the 153,504 deaths recorded actually died from Covid,” amounting to a mere “9,210 deaths.” The post has since been removed and labelled by Twitter with an interstitial, or filter: “This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules. Learn more.”
The original post, which can still be read thanks to the WayBackMachine’s internet archive, gave shocking numbers about deaths amidst the COVID-19 pandemic:
“This week the CDC quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6% of all the 153,504 deaths recorded actually died from Covid
“That's 9,210 deaths
“The other 94% had 2-3 other serious illnesses & the overwhelming majority were of very advanced age.”
Mel Q followed up that post by tweeting a link to “CDC” info.
CNN firmly objected to the claims, suggesting that the information in Mel Q’s post had taken numbers out of context:
“People can live with obesity, diabetes or heart disease for years but then get infected with Covid-19 and die quickly. The fact that they also had an underlying condition does not mean that Covid-19 was not a major reason, or the major reason, they died when they did.
“There is no secret about the fact that pre-existing health conditions can cause people to experience more severe problems from Covid-19. The CDC has long said that older adults and people with other underlying health conditions are more likely to become seriously ill.”
Mel Q appears to be associated with the “QAnon” conspiracy theorists, who according to The New York Times, reportedly believe: “Mr. Trump ran for office to save Americans from a so-called deep state filled with child-abusing, devil-worshiping bureaucrats.”
Big Tech companies like Twitter don’t seem to mind COVID-19 posts that blame Trump or America, however.
Twitter has allowed China to scapegoat the American military as the source of the virus when Spokesperson & Deputy Director General, Information Department, Foreign Ministry of China Lijian Zhao posted articles that suggested the Wuhan virus originated in the United States. Zhao also speculated in a tweet: “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”
Twitter also allowed the Chinese Embassy in France to post a lego-based propaganda video erroneously blasting the American government for not handling the virus properly.
Big tech companies in general have empowered organizations like the World Health Organization to be the gold standard of truth about the COVID-19 virus and its prevention. This choice has proven to be extremely problematic since the pandemic began. As late as January 14, WHO claimed in a tweet:
“Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact the FCC at 1-888-225-5322 and/or via the MRC’s FCC contact form to give your take on the petition filed by the Department of Commerce regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives.
