Twitter suspends account of doctor who attended October Anchorage Covid disinformation event
Today, Twitter suspended the account of Dr. Malone, a virologist and immunologist who claims to be the inventor of mRNA technology.
On October 30, Dr. Robert Malone and other "vaccine skeptics," including Anchorage Mayor (I didn't do it except I did do it) David Bronson, attended the far-right Alaska Covid Early Treatment Summit held at ChangePoint Church in Anchorage.
The event, held for those eager to learn how to reserve a ventilator quickly, was organized by a shadowy group called Alaska Covid Alliance (ACA). The mysterious group of covid and vaccine conspiracy theorists hand-delivered letters and "gifts" to the homes of data-driven Alaska physicians. Many recipients of the unwanted gifts said they believed ACA was attempting to intimidate them at their residences.
Today, Twitter suspended the account of Dr. Malone, a virologist, and immunologist who claims to be the inventor of mRNA technology. Credit, however, is often given to later advancements made by Katalin Karikó or Derrick Rossi. Malone has previously stated that LinkedIn suspended his account over what he said were posts made questioning the efficacy of some COVID-19 vaccines. On October 7, just a few weeks before flying to Anchorage, Malone tweeted that he had been banned from reading the New England Journal of Medicine, claiming his IP address had been blocked.
Malone has received widespread criticism for promoting COVID misinformation, including making unsupported comments about the toxicity of spike proteins. Malone also conducted interviews to generate interest in self-medication with the parasitic drug ivermectin and tweeted a study that questioned vaccine safety. The study was later retracted.
Last week a video was published online featuring Malone and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. The video made a series of claims about mRNA COVID-19 vaccines allegedly causing harm to children, but experts say the claims are inaccurate. Paul Offit, an infectious disease physician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said the claims made in the video were "dangerously, flagrantly incorrect."
Malone shared the video to his Twitter account, likely contributing to his suspension.
One of the differences between Twitter and Facebook is that Twitter tends to be more aggressive in stomping out harmful conspiracy theories and false health misinformation. Facebook, on the other hand, permits chiropractors, anesthesiologists, and far-right pediatricians to create private Facebook groups and pages concealed from the public, which allows for thousands of individuals to feed each other false information which the public is then forced to listen to when their debunked non-scientific falsehoods are regurgitated at assembly meetings by group members.
Anyway, one down, lots to go.
