Twitter Censors Top White House COVID Adviser for Mask Post
Twitter has censored a White House coronavirus adviser for suggesting that widespread mask mandates were not a magical defense against the coronavirus.
Dr. Scott Atlas, in a post published Saturday that Twitter censored but can be read on the Web archive, wrote, “Masks work? NO: LA, Miami, Hawaii, Alabama, France, Phlippnes, UK, Spain, Israel. WHO:’widesprd use not supported’ + many harms; Heneghan/Oxf CEBM:’despite decades, considerble uncertainty re value’; CDC rvw May:’no sig red’n in inflnz transm’n’; learn why.”
He followed that up with a tweet that Twitter allowed to remain.
“That means the right policy is @realDonaldTrump’s guideline: use masks for their intended purpose – when close to others, especially hi risk. Otherwise, social distance. No widespread mandates.”
That means the right policy is @realDonaldTrump guideline: use masks for their intended purpose – when close to others, especially hi risk. Otherwise, social distance. No widespread mandates. #CommonSense https://t.co/GZpBZxfNYa
— Scott W. Atlas (@SWAtlasHoover) October 17, 2020
In a statement, Twitter told The Hill that the banned tweet “was in violation of our COVID-19 Misleading Information Policy” that “prohibits sharing false or misleading content related to COVID-19 which could lead to harm.”
Atlas said he did not understand Twitter’s logic in banning a public discussion about wearing masks, according to Newsweek.
In an email to the publication, he wrote: “Twitter seems to be censoring the science if it goes against their own goals of public indoctrination.”
Referring to his tweet questioning the effectiveness of masks, Atlas said he “specifically and immediately” had noted in the followup that proper policy was “use masks when one cannot socially distance.”
In fact, Atlas tweets about the virus often, and often pushes back against the Lords of Lockdowns.
Famous public health “experts” testing & isolating asymptomatics, limiting in-person school, restricting businesses… That’s the DEFINITION of lockdown! Why care? Got another email from a wife of a suicide victim – pleading for me to OPEN America. End the insanity #LockdownsKill
— Scott W. Atlas (@SWAtlasHoover) October 16, 2020
#FactsMatter Lockdowns are a luxury of the rich. It is the working class and the poor whose lives are destroyed by prolonged lockdowns. Unconscionable and reckless to ignore that in order to naively focus on eliminating asymptomatic “cases”. https://t.co/1Yrt7CPXxP
— Scott W. Atlas (@SWAtlasHoover) October 14, 2020
OPEN schools and workplaces, protect high risk people! That’s current science from experts like Harvard’s @MartinKulldorff, Stanford’s Ioannidis and Bhattacharya, Oxford’s Gupta; now even the WHO? #FactsMatter #TruthPrevails https://t.co/6fJ39zVipw
— Scott W. Atlas (@SWAtlasHoover) October 10, 2020
Considering Twitter’s action came at the end of a week where the social media giant, along with Facebook, squelched distribution of New York Post articles that could be badly damaging to Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, many users argue that Twitter should stop throttling opinions.
Twitter is now silencing science they don’t agree with.
I repeat: This is insane.https://t.co/lFoxueNWXO
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) October 18, 2020
Atlas’s account is locked.
There is no consistency with @Twitter’s rules on COVID. @jack says “only authoritative sources”. @SWAtlasHoover is literally a COVID advisor to POTUS/ HHS.
Twitter is confident they know more about COVID than definitional “authoritative sources”. https://t.co/qM3TpRakZb
— Aaron Ginn (@aginnt) October 18, 2020
In September, Atlas collided with Big Tech when YouTube yanked a video of Atlas questioning the mantra that social distancing is effective, according to Fox News.
Atlas said that Big Tech’s censorship was a mistake.
“It’s a disaster,” Atlas told Fox at the time. “We’ve already seen the near obstruction of journalism.”
“When you start censoring science you are removing fact, removing the basic way that we decide what is truth in what is not,” Atlas said.
“This has been done I think historically in various countries and you know, we are sort of teetering on the edge of what is done in Third World countries — the countries we used to be proudly distinguished from.”
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