Republican Senate Candidate Dr. Manny Sethi has blasted Facebook and Twitter for censoring doctors who share their experiences using the drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus.
During a Knoxville event, Manny said:
“Hydroxychloroquine, now look, I’m a doctor, I’m a doctor. And I’ve looked at the science and we’re not sure. Now personally, I’ve seen it save a colleague of mine’s life; an orthopedic surgeon who was sick in the ICU, almost on a ventilator.
So where does Facebook getting off freezing the accounts of doctors who are talking about this? Did that Mark Zuckerberg guy get an MD? Where’d ‘he go to med school?
It’s time for Facebook and Twitter to get out of our business. I’m a doctor.”
In a tweet, Manny added: “The idea that the media and Facebook and Twitter are censoring doctors because they hate the President is outrageous to me. They need to butt out of this conversation and let doctors do their work.”
Related: ?The looming threat of antitrust isn’t deterring Big Tech censorship
The censorship of doctors that support hydroxychloroquine on social media has led to strong pushback against the tech giants with many questioning why social media companies are branding the advice of health professionals “coronavirus misinformation.”
Facebook’s censorship even extends to countries where hydroxychloroquine is among is among the most commonly prescribed drugs and has been “overall chosen as the most effective therapy amongst COVID-19 treaters.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were quizzed about their escalating censorship of doctors that promote hydroxychloroquine during a July 29 House Judiciary Committee hearing on antitrust law but both CEOs defended their censorship with Zuckerberg vowing to take posts down if they say hydroxychloroquine is a cure for COVID.
Before the hearing, Facebook, Google, and Twitter had engaged in one of the biggest acts of Big Tech censorship to date by censoring a viral White Coat Summit press conference featuring several doctors supporting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment option for the coronavirus.
The press conference generated tens of millions of views within the first few hours of being posted but was then scrubbed by Facebook, Google, and Twitter for violating their coronavirus misinformation rules.
After the hearing, the censorship of doctors continued with Twitter temporarily locking the accounts of Dr. Stella Immanuel and top New York medical doctor David Samadi.
Immanuel had appeared at the White Coat Summit and spoke positively about hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment option while Samadi had tweeted out praise for hydroxychloroquine.
