Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube removed a viral video this week because it featured a group of doctors making controversial claims about COVID-19 and its treatments.
In the video, which racked up more than 14 million views before it was taken down, a woman identified as Houston Dr. Stella Immanuel, argued against the government-mandated shutdown and pressed for the use of hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that may or may not be an effective treatment against the coronavirus. Studies saying otherwise are “fake science” sponsored by “fake pharma companies,” she said. She then discouraged people from wearing face masks, reiterating that we already have a “cure”: hydroxychloroquine.
Suffice to say, these claims didn’t sit well with Big Tech. Citing a COVID-19 misinformation policy, the social media giants explained that the video violated their terms and was thus removed — but not before President Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. had shared it.
To be sure, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are private companies and have the right to create and enforce whatever policy they like. And, given some of the more outlandish claims Immanuel has made in the past, they may have even been right to do so. But by labeling the video as “COVID-19 misinformation,” Big Tech is acting like the debate over hydroxychloroquine, face masks, and government-mandated restrictions is settled science. In fact, it really is not.
Hydroxychloroquine, in particular, is a tricky subject that seems to evoke varying opinions from a wide range of health experts. Dr. Harvey Risch, an epidemiology professor at the Yale School of Public Health, argued this week that the drug is effective against COVID-19, but it’s become too political to think about clearly. Dozens of doctors have confirmed Risch’s position with anecdotal evidence and even some data. The Henry Ford Health System, for example, released a study in early July arguing that treatment with hydroxychloroquine had cut the death rate significantly in very sick patients hospitalized with COVID-19.
But there are studies that suggest the exact opposite as well. In June, researchers in the United Kingdom said that hydroxychloroquine did not make a difference in coronavirus patients’ outcomes. A randomized trial conducted in Spain had the same result. And a meta-analysis of 24 such randomized studies concluded there was “insufficient and often conflicting evidence on the benefits and harms of using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.”
In other words, we really don’t know whether hydroxychloroquine works. The health experts don’t know, and neither do the politicians. So either Big Tech knows something that we don’t, or it’s choosing definitively to answer a question about medicine that is still being debated in the medical world.
The public deserves to be a part of that debate. It shouldn’t be up to Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube to decide otherwise. But that’s exactly what Big Tech has done.
