YouTube Suspends GOP Senator for Violating Its COVID-19 Policy

YouTube has suspended Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson over his controversial comments on COVID-19.

The seven-day ban stems from a video that was filmed during a Milwaukee Press Club event on June 3 when the GOP lawmaker began touting unproven alternative treatments for the disease. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports Johnson slammed President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump for “ignoring” and “working against robust research (on) the use of cheap, generic drugs” like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. 

In the video, Johnson reassured the audience that the experiment drugs were “incredibly safe”; However, in July 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration determined hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were not effective in combatting COVID-19, prompting officials to revoke the emergency use authorization for the drugs.

“We removed the video in accordance with our COVID-19 medical misinformation policies, which don’t allow content that encourages people to use Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin to treat or prevent the virus,” a YouTube spokesperson told the outlet.

Johnson’s office blasted the platform over the suspension.

“YouTube’s ongoing Covid censorship proves they have accumulated too much unaccountable power,” Johnson wrote in a statement to ABC News. “Big Tech and mainstream media believe they are smarter than medical doctors who have devoted their lives to science and use their skills to save lives. They have decided there is only one medical viewpoint allowed and it is the viewpoint dictated by government agencies. How many lives will be lost as a result? How many lives could have been saved with a free exchange of medical ideas? Government-sanctioned censorship of ideas and speech should concern us all.”