Viral Video of 'False' COVID-19 Claims Removed on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook

Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook removed a viral video, which made "false claims" about coronavirus. The video in question made rounds on social media last Monday, July 27. .

According to CNN, the video was published by Breitbart News and featured a group of people wearing white lab coats and calling themselves "America's Frontline Doctors." They staged a press conference in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC.

According to America's Frontline Doctors website, the group is founded by Los Angeles-based emergency medicine specialist Dr. Simone Gold. She was featured on Fox News for claiming that stay-at-home orders are harmful since those orders had "no scientific basis" to show average Americans should worry about the coronavirus.

A speaker who identifies herself as a doctor claims that people do not need to wear masks to avoid coronavirus transmission. Dr. Stella Immanuel is a general practitioner from Houston, Texas, who claimed to have cured 350 COVID-19 patients.

She said her patients have diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, and old people, and she all gave them a drug cocktail of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax, "and they're all well."

She also rebuked recent studies that show the malaria treatment does not treat coronavirus. According to her, these are "fake science" backed by "fake pharma companies."

"This virus has a cure, it's called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax," said Dr. Immanuel, adding that people do not need masks.

The video was taken down

The video quickly went viral on Facebook, with more than 14 million views. However, it was taken down on the evening of June 27 for misinformation. However, Facebook-owned data-analytics firm Crowdtangle said it has already been shared for about 600,000 times before it was removed from the platform.

A Facebook spokesperson told CNN that the video was removed for sharing fake information related to coronavirus and claims connected "to myths debunked by the WHO."

Before the post was taken down, one of the people who shared the video was President Donald Trump. He shared various versions of the video with his 84 million followers on Twitter. However, these claims go against multiple studies on hydroxychloroquine and advice from U.S. public health experts on how to stop the spread of disease.

In Youtube, the video that had been viewed more than 40,000 times has also been removed for "violating YouTube's Community Guidelines" on the late evening of July 27.

Similarly, Twitter scrubbed the video after Trump shared versions of it. "We're taking action in line with our COVID misinformation policy," a Twitter spokesperson said. The following day, the videos that Trump retweeted were no longer available.

Moreover, Twitter also took down the version posted by Donald Trump Jr. and those shared by Breitbart News. Meanwhile, Breitbart has not yet given out a statement about the incident.

Meanwhile, Dr. Immanuel dared CNN and Dr. Anthony Fauci to take urine tests to prove they are not taking hydroxychloroquine.

In April, Tech Times reported a study that hydroxychloroquine does not help speed up the recovery of COVID-19 patients while it causes heart problems. However, in early July, a new study found the anti-malarial drug has shown a "significant reduction" in morbidity among hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

This article is owned by Tech Times, written by CJ Robles.

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