| Hey everyone, it's Kurt. It turns out there is a fine line on the internet between being hurtful and being hopeful, and U.S. President Donald Trump is regularly walking that line. Earlier this week, Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and YouTube removed posts by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for sharing misleading information about Covid-19. In a livestream that Facebook eventually removed from its main social network and Instagram, Bolsonaro said Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, was curing Covid-19. In a Twitter video that was pulled, he also praised the use of the drug and suggested social-distancing measures should end, BuzzFeed reported. All three companies have policies against sharing information that could cause people real-world harm, and Bolsonaro apparently violated those rules. I'm not a scientist, and I don't know whether Hydroxychloroquine will work. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently gave emergency approval for the drug to be prescribed to Covid-19 patients. But some scientists, including those working with the White House, believe it's too early to promote the drug as a miracle cure, and early studies have come back mixed. Suggesting it is a cure was clearly dangerous enough that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube felt compelled to remove videos of a head of state promoting that idea. That's why I found it interesting that another head of state, who has similarly praised the drug on social media, has not been penalized. I'm speaking, of course, of President Trump. "HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine," Trump tweeted on March 21. "The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents).........be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST, and GOD BLESS EVERYONE!" He delivered the same message on Facebook, and has also shared or retweeted multiple links promoting the treatment. He's also been posting videos of his now-daily White House press briefings to his social media accounts where he also praises the drug. It's long been believed that Trump receives special treatment by these companies -- that he's held to a different standard than the rest of us. The companies have long denied that, and their action against Bolsonaro seemed proof that no one was above their policies. "I honestly do my best to treat everyone with that same degree of respect," Vijaya Gadde, the executive in charge of enforcing Twitter's policies, told Bloomberg earlier this year. Her team would have ultimately made the decision on Bolsonaro's posts. So I asked Facebook and Twitter why these posts from Trump don't violate their rules in the same way Bolsonaro's did. Both might cause real-world harm. On the same day as Trump's tweet, officials in Nigeria warned citizens not to self-medicate with Hydroxycholoroquine after two people were hospitalized for overdoses of the drug. And patients who use Hydroxychloroquine for other illnesses are suddenly having trouble getting their medication. Both companies confirmed the posts from Trump were OK, but declined to share the distinction. My best guess is that while Bolsonaro said the drug works, Trump praised the drug as having a chance to work. There's that fine line between hurtful and hopeful -- and a dangerous example of why these companies' policies can be so hard to enforce. --Kurt Wagner | 
Post a Comment