After more than 11 years on the platform, Twitter has permanently suspended Bill Mitchell – a prominent supporter of President Trump and host of the political interview show YourVoice America.
Mitchell was allegedly initially given a 7-day suspension on his main account for talking about “mask dangers” – a topic that Twitter deems to be “coronavirus misinformation.”
He started using a second account to tweet during the ban and his main account was then permanently suspended for “ban evasion.”
Mitchell had more than 590,000 followers before he was suspended and is one of several prominent pro-Trump voices to be purged from the platform in recent months.
Since introducing its coronavirus rules that prohibit denial of “expert guidance” about the coronavirus and unverified coronavirus claims that “could” lead to social unrest, Twitter has challenged millions of accounts for coronavirus rule violations.
Social media platforms enforcing their rules against discussions related to masks has proved controversial due to the changing recommendations from health authorities.
Outside of Twitter, the level of censorship of what Big Tech deems to be coronavirus misinformation is even greater with Facebook recently announcing that more than 100 million posts had been removed or had warning labels applied for violating its COVID-19 misinformation rules.
Since making this announcement, Facebook has also started warning users before they attempt to share articles about COVID-19. As with many Big Tech rules, some institutions are exempt from the rules and in this instance, articles from what Facebook deems to be “credible health authorities” won’t have these warning notifications applied.
