Twitter took down a tweet from one of President Donald Trump’s top COVID-19 advisors this week that claimed face masks do not work to curtail the spread of the virus.
On Sunday morning, the tweet no longer appeared. In its place was a note saying, “This Tweet is no longer available” and a link to Twitter’s rules and policies explaining why the company removes or limits certain posts.
The tweet in question was published on Saturday by Dr. Scott Atlas and read: “Masks work? NO: LA, Miami, Hawaii, Alabama, France, Phlippnes, UK, Spain, Israel. WHO:’widesprd use not supported’ + many harms; Heneghan/Oxf CEBM:’despite decades, considerble uncertainty re value’; CDC rvw May:’no sig red’n in inflnz transm’n’; learn why.”
In a follow-up tweet later on Saturday, Atlas wrote: “That means the right policy is @realDonaldTrump guideline: use masks for their intended purpose — when close to others, especially hi risk. Otherwise, social distance. No widespread mandates.”
Atlas is a neuroradiologist, professor, commentator, and healthcare policy advisor. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was selected by President Donald Trump in August of this year to serve as an advisor on the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
Later on Sunday, Dr. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services and the coordinator of the Trump administration’s testing response, took a dig at Atlas by tweeting “#Masks work? YES!”
“And even though cases/hospitalizations are increasing, we can control #COVID19 by wearing masks when we can’t distance, avoiding crowds especially indoors, good hygiene, and smart testing of contacts and to identify/isolate those asymptomatic but infectious,” he added.
As NBC News notes:
Trump has leaned on Atlas in recent months, preferring his advice over that of other advisers, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Atlas, a neuroradiologist who isn’t an expert in infectious diseases, gained attention after he made a number of appearances on Fox News. He has pushed more aggressively to reopen sectors of the economy, and he is regularly seen at the White House without wearing a mask.
This has made Atlas an enemy of other high-level health officials who push the mainstream narrative that the coronavirus is a killer modern-day bubonic plague that can only be controlled by strict government controls and universal mask usage.
Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was overheard by an NBC News reporter last month telling a colleague that Atlas is feeding the president misleading data. “Everything he says is false,” Redfield said during a phone call made in public on a commercial airline.
Deborah Birx, who is also on the Coronavirus Task Force, reportedly expressed “relief” that Atlas’ tweet was removed, per a source with knowledge of the conversation.
According to the Washington Post, Birx recently confronted the office of Vice President Mike Pence regarding Atlas, saying during a meeting “that she does not trust Atlas, does not believe he is giving Trump sound advice and wants him removed from the task force.”
The dogma among the establishment is that anyone who does not wear a face mask is guilty of killing their fellow Americans, even though, for young people at least (including most working-age people), COVID-19 is no more deadly than the seasonal flu, only poses a serious risk to individuals who have severely weakened immune systems, and a long line of research on mask-wearing prior to the coronavirus panic consistently shows that face masks are not effective to prevent viral respiratory illness such as influenza-like diseases or respiratory illnesses transmitted by droplets or aerosol particles.
And Twitter censoring information that contradicts the establishment’s preferred narrative is nothing new. Twitter, along with other tech giants Facebook and Google (including Google-owned YouTube) have made it their mission to limit the distribution of content that questions COVID-19 paranoia or suggests that masks are not effective.
Despite the fact that the companies claim to use their censorship powers for the sake of delivering users accurate information backed by science, they coordinated back in July to stamp out the “White Coat Summit” video of a Washington, D.C. event in which a large group of doctors and healthcare professionals came together to discuss the scientific basis for the lockdowns, saying they were uncalled for.
