Just for the record, here's why Twitter suspended my account in October 2021...
and why they were wrong to do so
Over a year ago, in October 2021, Twitter permanently suspended my account, @davidjthunder, on the grounds that I was guilty of “repeat violations” of their rule against Covid misinformation. Twitter had flagged several of my Tweets but never explained specifically which of my statements violated their rules, or how. I have appealed their decisions at least five times, both in the pre-Musk and post-Musk regime, and have received one and only one response every single time (though I am still waiting for a response to my latest appeal, filed on 30th November 2022):
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Before getting into the “nitty-gritty” of my suspension, it is worth mentioning that a permanent Twitter suspension is quite a big deal for anyone who habitually contributes to public debate. It has some important implications both for the public and for the affected individual:
First, the public is deprived of this voice, and many others, that could have potentially enriched the conversation or brought matters to people’s attention that other people had not noticed.
Second, a person who is permanently removed from Twitter is effectively removed from the “digital town square.” It is very, very difficult to make much impact on public debate when one is completely absent from Twitter - unless, perhaps, one happens to have a major newspaper column, which is not the case for most of us.
Third, there are important knock-on effects of being permanently absent from Twitter. Many journalists and chat shows use Twitter as a source of news and stories. When you disappear completely from people’s Twitter feed, and don’t have a major newspaper column to get on their radar, you are “out in the cold” and certainly less likely to be invited to participate in a radio or TV show.
Finally, another knock-on effect of being permanently banned from Twitter is that you are deprived of a powerful marketing tool for promoting events you are involved in, or blogs you want to get more exposure for. I have a Substack blog, for example, that is very difficult to grow without a Twitter account.
In the absence of a robust competitor to Twitter, removal from this platform is a sort of media “death” for many of us. There should be a very, very serious reason for inflicting that sort of cost on someone. For example, a person who uses their Twitter account to engage in criminal activity, to inflict tangible harms on others, to incite violence, or target others with repeated verbal abuse or harassment, might be a potential candidate for a permanent suspension.
But a person who engages in unpopular or counter-cultural political or scientific commentary, or challenges the opinions of a public health authority, has done nothing more than express an opinion in good faith - precisely what one would expect from a citizen of the “digital town square.” To assume that such a person is a menace to the public, just because they rock the boat or challenge one of the political or scientific orthodoxies of the day, is frankly ridiculous. Worse, it is dangerous for the future of free and open societies, as it supports the totalitarian ambitions of tyrants, who cannot abide to be contradicted.
According to Twitter, I was removed for sharing “misleading and potentially harmful information.” Yet, as far as I can tell, none of my tweets met these criteria for permanent suspension.
Some people may disagree on the issues I addressed on Twitter (for example, whether or not children or young adults in good health had sufficient reason to accept an emergency use Covid vaccine) but the mere fact of that one’s position prompts objections among some people is obviously not a reasonable ground for suspension from a discussion forum.
Let’s assume, for a moment, that Twitter actually intended the category of “misinformation” in good faith, to capture something that could actually be tracked in a non-ideological, evidence-based manner. In that case, the issue would not be whether some people might contest the content of my tweets, but rather, whether my tweets shared information known by virtually all relevant public health experts to be false or misleading, and with the potential to seriously harm people’s health.
None of my flagged tweets met these criteria.
Here are the tweets that allegedly fell foul of Twitter’s Covid misinformation policy. For each tweet, I explain why I do not think it violates Twitter’s rules, at least on a reasonable construal of them:
TWEET 1: “It is silly to equate a young person’s refusal of the vaccine as a belief in their “invincibility.” Do people actually believe that a 19 year old (I assume without an underlying health issue) is at greater risk from Covid than from a novel vaccine approved for emergency use only?”
- This is a reasonable question, based on the miniscule fraction of young and health people who were hospitalised for Covid-19, and the fact that the long-term, population-wide risks of the Covid vaccines were still unknown. There is nothing “misleading and potentially harmful” about this question.
TWEET 2: “Covid vaccines do NOT stop Covid transmission. Many people, especially children and young adults, do not need to vaccinate as their natural immune systems can protect them. So vaccine passes only serve as a form of vax coercion and population control, not disease control.”
- The evidence from national test data in the UK at the time of this tweet showed that vaccinated and unvaccinated people were testing positive for Covid-19 at similar rates, proportionate to their numbers - indeed, in some cases vaccinated people were testing positive at a higher rate than unvaccinated people. Subsequent evidence from Israel and other countries has only served to corroborate this. So the Covid vaccines were clearly not “blocking transmission.”
- Were there “many people” who did not need to vaccinate against Covid-19? Of course there were. (a) people who had recently been exposed to the virus and developed natural immunity; and (b) people who were at miniscule risk of suffering serious and debilitating disease from the virus, such as healthy children and young and healthy adults. In practice, all of this evidence points to one inexorable conclusion, namely that the vaccine passes served primarily as a means of vaccine coercion rather than disease control.
TWEET 3: “We’re not going to get to herd immunity as a country if children are not vaccinated…” - Words of a mother, no doubt well-intentioned but nonsensical. Children are at negligible risk from Covid. Exposing them to an experimental vaccine is irresponsible.”
- Were children at “neglible risk” from Covid? Yes, absolutely. Just look at hospitalisation records carefully and you will see that children without serious underlying conditions make up a tiny fraction of Covid hospitalisations. Under these circumstances, to expose children to a vaccine that is still being tested out on the general population under Emergency Use Authorisation would indeed be “irresponsible.” Someone might disagree with this statement, but that does not make the statement “misleading and potentially harmful.” Children had nothing to lose by being exempted from the vaccine. Their risk from Covid was demonstrably negligible.
TWEET 4: “(Ivermectin): A VERY safe drug that has been widely used in India, Mexico & elsewhere to cure or alleviate Covid-19. Its use is being actively discouraged by regulators while an experimental vaccine with a far worse safety profile is being actively promoted for the general population.”
- Even if Twitter or its favourite public health authorities happens to believe Ivermectin is not effective, the matter remains in dispute among scientific experts, and thus is by no means settled. In any case, I merely pointed out that the drug had been used in various places with the purpose of curing or alleviating Covid-19, which is indisputably true. It is also obviously true that Ivermectin has been “actively discouraged” by regulators (most famously, perhaps, the FDA, with its crass tweet of a horse image).
- And if you look into adverse effect databases for Ivermectin, you will not find anything on the scale of the adverse effects reported for the Covid vaccines, including serious and potentially life-threatening cardiac events like myocarditis. Ivermectin is a much more established and well tested medication than the Covid vaccines, recognised by the WHO as an “essential medicine,” with an excellent safety profile, far superior to the safety profile of these novel vaccines. For all the vague talk about the “dangers” of Ivermectin, the fact is that when it is correctly used, it is very safe, which is why it has been taken by millions of people all over the world for decades.
Given that the tweets flagged by Twitter were neither “misleading” nor “harmful,” on a charitable interpretation, and fell well within the range of reasonable opinions being defended by public health experts, the only conclusion I can draw is that Twitter’s campaign against “Covid misinformation” was deeply compromised either by the scientific ignorance of Twitter’s censorship team (which, logically enough, would translate into their AI censorship tools), or by a political decision to stamp out certain dissenting opinions - or perhaps a combination of both.
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Thanks for sharing David. I posted this on Twitter and made a statement regarding the reinstatement of those that have been banned due to misinformation. Twitter post w/link to this Substack: "I hope that Twitter will consider reinstating those people that have been banned for "misinformation", particularly those that were banned in relation to Covid-19 "misinformation".
David Thunder is just 1 such example."
Just like me . . & I'm still waiting . . #Twitter still doesn't seem to like anyone who contests the vaccine . . maybe because it upsets those who have already had it & as we know once it's in you can't get it out . . . Zeropointv@zeropointv1