Sen. Ben Sasse and Rep. Mike Gallagher called for Twitter to suspend accounts operated by Chinese Communist Party officials after the accounts allegedly spread disinformation about the coronavirus.
“While the coronavirus pandemic is afflicting families, governments, and markets around the world, the Chinese Communist Party is waging a massive propaganda campaign to rewrite the history of COVID-19 and whitewash the Party’s lies to the Chinese people and the world,” Sasse and Gallagher said in a letter Friday to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. “The widespread use of Twitter by communist officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) during this crisis emphasizes the contradiction in officials from governments that deny their citizens access to social media platforms like Twitter having access to those same platforms, oftentimes to spread disinformation.”
“This propaganda obscures and confuses users over the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and potentially undermines efforts to contain and control the outbreak. We believe this behavior more than warrants their removal from the platform,” the pair added in the letter.
Sasse’s and Gallagher’s demand comes as Chinese officials have tried to claim that the U.S. Army was the origin of the coronavirus. Lijian Zhao, a foreign minister in China’s Department of Information, has been one of the lead officials in spreading the conspiracy online.
“CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” he tweeted last week.
His remarks drew public rebuke from the State Department, with Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell summoning Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai to give him a “stern representation” of the facts.
President Trump has responded by referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus,” which he said is meant to remind people where the virus originated.
