President Donald Trump has taken Twitter by sharing a new misleading video about Covid-19, which was posted on Monday.
In the video, a group of people calling themselves "'s Frontline Doctors America" and wearing white medical gowns spoke against the backdrop of the Supreme Court in Washington, and made misleading claims about the virus, including Donald Trump's theory that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for Covid-19, and that masks do not slow the spread of the virus.
The Covid-19 video doesn't seem like anything special, but within six hours, President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Junior had tweeted versions of it ,and the right-wing news site Breitbart.
It went viral, and was widely shared through Facebook dedicated to anti-vaccination movements and conspiracy theories, such as QAnon, garnering millions of views. Multiple versions of the video were uploaded to YouTube and links were shared via Twitter.
This is due to the fact that the video was specifically designed to attract supporters of conspiracy theories on the internet and conservatives eager to see the economy reopen, with scenery and characters that add authenticity. It also appeared that even when social media companies accelerate response time to eliminate dangerous virus misinformation, people continued to find new ways of spreading.
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter worked feverishly to remove videos of Covid-19 that Trump has spread, saying it violated their policies, but by then, it had already become the latest example of misinformation about the virus spreading widely.
“If just one person believes someone spreading these lies and then causes others to believe them, spread them, or even die from the virus, that one person is one too many,” said Lisa Kaplan, founder of the Alethea, a startup that helps combat misinformation.
One of the speakers, identified as Dr. Stella Immanuel, said: “You don’t need masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus.” In the video, she also claims to have treated hundreds of patients infected with Covid-19 with hydroxychloroquine , a theory promoted by Trump, and claimed it was an effective treatment.
Trump’s theory about hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that he has said he was taking, has been rejected by the Food and Drug Administration, which has said that “while it may be effective in prevention, it carries many risks.” The National Institutes of Health has halted clinical trials of the drug.
Furthermore, studies have repeatedly shown that masks are effective in limiting the spread of coronavirus.
The trajectory of Monday’s video mirrors that of “Plandemic,” a 26-minute narrative that spread widely in May that falsely claimed a cabal was using the virus and a potential vaccine for personal gain and power. In just over a week, Plandemic was viewed more than eight million times across YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram before being taken down.
However, the video posted on Monday had more views within a few hours of its posting, even though it was removed much more quickly.
On Tuesday morning, Twitter also took action against Donald Trump Jr. after he shared a Covid-19 video. A Twitter spokesperson said the company ordered Trump to delete the misleading tweet and said itwould “restrict the account’s functionality for 12 hours.” Twitter took similar action against Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party.
When asked about the video, Trump continued to defend the involved doctors and the treatments for Covid-19 they support.
"For some reason the internet wanted to take it down and remove it," the president said. "I think they're very respected doctors. There was a woman who was very impressive in her statements on the issue, she was so successful, and they took her voice away. I don't know why they took her out. Maybe they had a good reason, maybe not."
The members of the group behind the video that flooded social media and was constantly promoted by Trump and his son say they are doctors who treat patients infected with Covid-19. But it was not clear where they practice their profession or how many patients they have seen.
Doctors have also been promoted by conservatives like Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, a nonprofit media organization.
