Trump is retweeting complaints of censorship after Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter take down hydroxychloroquine video

• President Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr., recently shared on video clips on Twitter showing a Texas doctor touting hydroxychloroquine as a "cure" for coronavirus and dismissing studies critical of the drug as "fake science."
• The video, from Breitbart News, has been millions of times across social media. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have since took action to remove clips from their platforms.
• Trump has lashed out in response since the clips were removed, retweeting conspiracy theories about why social platforms removed the video and why they don't want news of hydroxychloroquine to spread.

President Donald Trump has again accused social media companies of censorship after Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter took down video clips showing a Texas doctor touting hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure.

The video in question, posted Tuesday night by Breitbart News, showed a doctor throwing her support behind hydroxychloroquine, a drug the Federal Drug Administration has determined is not an effective treatment for coronavirus. The video quickly gained tens of million views as it spread across social platforms in the hours after it was first shared Tuesday.

Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter took down the original Breitbart clips Monday night for violating policies against spreading coronavirus misinformation. However, the video was already spread and shared with millions of people and attracted Twitter posts from the president and his son, Donald Trump Jr.

Trump did not post on Twitter specifically about the video, but he did retweet posts containing the video and accusing tech companies of censorship for removing the video from their platforms. He retweeted a post from right-wing producer Robby Starbuck, who seemed to blame a Facebook spokesperson, who was previously a Democratic communications employee, for deciding to remove the video.

"This press conference of doctors had 14 million views on Facebook today," Starbuck wrote in a Twitter thread Monday night. "FB took it down shortly after a NYTimes reporter complained. The FB comms person who replied to the NYTImes reporter confirming it was removed used to work for @SenatorBoxer & @dccc."

Starbuck continued: "What business does Facebook have overruling the medical expertise of licensed doctors who've seen hydroxychloroquine work in patients and in studies? ... Is Facebook unilaterally deciding what science or medicine is accurate?"

In the Breitbart video in question, doctors from a group called America's Frontline Doctors insist that hydroxychloroquine is a "cure" for coronavirus, and called studies questioning the effectiveness of the drug "fake science." One of the doctors in the video also insists masks aren't needed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The claims made in the video capitalize on the conspiracy theory that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is an effective coronavirus treatment the medical industry is suppressing in order to profit off the development of a vaccine. However, multiple studies have found hydroxychloroquine is not effective in treating coronavirus, which led the FDA last month to revoke authorization of emergency use of the drug for treating COVID-19 patients.

The Daily Beast reports that the doctor in the video, Stella Immanuel, is a religious minister with a history of making claims about the use of alien DNA in medical treatments and blaming certain medical problems on people's dreams about having sex with witches.

In addition to removing the video from its platform, Twitter is taking action against high-profile accounts who they say violated its policies on spreading misleading and "potentially harmful" misinformation on the coronavirus. Twitter temporarily limited some features Tuesday for Donald Trump Jr.'s Twitter account, in addition to deleting his tweet containing the Breitbart video. The company took similar actions later Tuesday against Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, after she shared a clip on Twitter from the same video.