OUT OF LINE

Twitter Pulls Wildly Misleading COVID-19 Video Shared by Trump

The claims made in the video directly contradicted the advice of Trump’s own public-health experts.

Twitter has pulled a video of doctors making false claims about the novel coronavirus after it was shared by President Trump. Late Monday night, the president stumbled across the viral video that showed fringe doctors touting the controversial anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as “a cure for COVID” and doubting the effectiveness of wearing masks. The claims made in the video directly contradicted the advice of Trump’s own public-health experts—but, despite that, he slammed the retweet button. Now, Trump’s page shows a disclaimer where the retweet once was, reading: “This Tweet is no longer available.” A Twitter spokesperson told CNN: “We're taking action in line with our COVID misinfo policy.” Facebook and YouTube have also confirmed they removed the misleading video. Despite what Trump appears to believe, clinical trials have found that hydroxycholroquine has shown no real benefit in treating coronavirus patients, and has potentially deadly side effects.