YouTube suspends Bolsonaro’s account over false vaccine claim

Sao Paulo, Oct 25 (EFE).- YouTube on Monday suspended the channel of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro for at least seven days after he falsely claimed that Covid-19 vaccines were linked with developing AIDS.

The video, which was broadcast live on the president’s official account last Thursday, was also removed under the platform’s guidelines on medical disinformation, YouTube said.

Spokespersons of the social network told Efe that YouTube also chose to suspend Bolsonaro’s account for at least a week because his channel had already been notified in July about the publication of disinformation about the pandemic.

This is the first time that a social network has suspended the account of Bolsonaro, a denialist of the severity of the virus and the effectiveness of vaccines.

Facebook and Instagram also removed from their platforms the video on Monday in which Bolsonaro falsely linked the use of Covid-19 vaccines to AIDS, attributing the claim to a United Kingdom government report found to be inaccurate.

Bolsonaro’s statements generated a wave of criticism from various medical and scientific associations, which flatly denied any link between the vaccines and AIDS.

The open denialism of the president has led to the establishment of a parliamentary commission to investigate the omissions of the government in the midst of the health emergency, whose final report, which must be voted on this Tuesday, accuses Bolsonaro of “crimes against humanity” for having aggravated the crisis.

With more than 605,000 deaths and 21.7 million cases, Brazil is the second country in the world hardest hit by the pandemic, behind only the United States. EFE

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