Twitter ends COVID-19 censorship
Elon Musk this week put an end to Twitter’s infamous “COVID-19 Misinformation” policy which for 2½ years censored tweets that questioned masks, vaccines, the origin of the virus, or any other information unapproved by health authorities. The policy is a momentous event for many world-class scientists who were suspended from the platform for sharing scientific evidence.
Those scientists include Dr. Peter McCullough, one of history’s most published cardiologists and Dr. Robert Malone, the co-inventor of mRNA vaccine, both of whom advised against taking the experimental shots.
They also include Prof. Shmuel Shapira, MD, MPH who was banned from the platform for a tweet in which the premier scientist and retired Israeli colonel suggested monkeypox is a side effect of the COVID-19 injections. Shapira served as the Director General of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) until last year, is founder and head of the Department of Military Medicine of the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine and IDF Medical Corps and is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at Reichman University in Israel. He previously served as Director of the Hebrew University Hadassah School of Public Health and Deputy Director General of the Hadassah Medical Organization, served as the IDF Head of Trauma Branch and is a Full Colonel (Res.) in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He has published over 110 peer-reviewed articles.
Then there’s renowned physician Dr. Andrew Bostom, MD, MS, an affiliate of Brown University Center for Primary Care and Prevention who was suspended by Twitter after he shared a peer-reviewed study showing the COVID-19 vaccine impairs sperm count in men. Bostom completed the largest randomized controlled trial ever conducted in chronic kidney transplant recipients, has published 115 peer-reviewed studies on epidemiology and clinical trials, recently submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in a vaccine mandate case and, until last year, he was Associate Professor of Medicine and Family Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University since 1997. His CV lists further accomplishments.
Journalist Alex Berenson also found himself banned by Twitter for a tweet which, while completely true, did not portray the COVID-19 injections in a positive light.
“It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission,” Berenson’s offending tweet read. “Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it – at best – as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.”
None of Berenson’s statement about the vaccine was disputed by Pfizer, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or any other official body, yet it prompted Twitter to suspend the former New York Times journalist in violation of Twitter’s own “five strikes” rule. The tweet was Berenson’s first “strike”. Berenson eventually won reinstatement after a drawn-out legal battle which uncovered some of the social media company’s collusion with the Biden administration to censor science.
But it wasn’t just truth which violated Twitter’s “misinformation” policy. At least one user was de-platformed simply for being irreverent towards Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who thanked the vaccine after getting COVID. Bourla’s gratitude came despite having promised the public that the shots were “100% effective” against the spread of the virus.
“1) My company created a vaccine, promoted its 95% efficacy with two doses, and got it mandated for many people,” Twitter user Matt Brown mocked. “2) I received four doses of my company’s vaccine. 3) I got the virus my company’s vaccine was purported to prevent anyway. 4) I am grateful for my company’s vaccine.”
But in a Senate committee hearing in September, when asked if they censored Joe Biden’s false statements that “you’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations” and that vaccinated people “do not spread the disease to anyone else,” the Big Tech executives were silent.
A high-profile lawsuit filed in May by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry alleges a “collusion enterprise” based on previously revealed internal emails between the federal government and social media companies. The complaint accuses the Biden administration of coordinating the censorship of COVID-19 science with Twitter and Facebook. Judge Terry Doughty ruled in favor of deposing top Biden officials, including former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, current White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and Anthony Fauci.
Last week, Fauci was subjected to a seven-hour-long cross-examination in relation to the case.
