Conservative Voices Are Pumping Out Coronavirus Misinformation on Twitter
Twitter has frequently been criticized for acting slowly, if at all, to curb the spread of misinformation. But with an unprecedented pandemic sweeping the U.S., the social media platform is taking unprecedented steps to rein things in, particularly when it comes to world leaders and the top rung of right-wing crankery. Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro had two of his tweets taken down on Sunday after he touted hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to prevent and treat malaria, as a miracle cure for COVID-19. One tweet featured a clip of Bolsonaro walking through Brasília while arguing that the drug, which is being tested on some COVID-19 patients but is still unproven, would allow the country to return to work, lest its stalled economy result in Brazil turning “into Venezuela.” Last week Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro had a snake oil tweet of his own deleted after he claimed to have discovered a “natural brew” cure à la Alex Jones.
To prepare for the wave of coronavirus news, Twitter published a blog post earlier this month announcing a “zero-tolerance approach to platform manipulation and any other attempts to abuse our service at this critical juncture.” In response to an inquiry from BuzzFeed News, which reported on the Bolsonaro deletions, a spokesman for Twitter said the site is making good on its word. “Twitter recently announced the expansion of its rules to cover content that could be against public health information provided by official sources and could put people at greater risk of transmitting COVID-19,” the spokesperson said.
The crackdown is notable given that Twitter often lets top dignitaries play by their own set of rules when it comes to disseminating lies. Last year the site issued a new term of service stating that if a “world leader does violate the Twitter Rules but there is a clear public interest value to keeping the Tweet on the service, we may place it behind a notice that provides context about the violation and allows people to click through should they wish to see the content.” That leeway has allowed people like Donald Trump to continue to spread misinformation unabated. “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine,” he tweeted just over a week ago, presaging the claim that got Maduro and Bolsonaro in trouble. “The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH...be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST.”
Some of the president’s lackeys are following his lead but facing the consequences he’s avoided. Fox News host Laura Ingraham was forced to delete a March 20 tweet claiming that hydroxychloroquine had shown “very promising results. One Patient was described as ‘Lazarus’ who was seriously ill from Covid-19, already released.” Rudy Giuliani—Trump’s cybersecurity adviser, among other things—tweeted a quote insisting that hydroxychloroquine had been shown to be “100% effective” in helping coronavirus patients. Twitter temporarily locked him out of his account and deleted the claim on Saturday, but he is still touting the drug in tweets and telling followers to learn more about its “efficacy” by subscribing to his personal website.
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