Facebook Oversight Reverses Hydroxychloroquine Censorship Decision
Facebook Oversight Reverses Hydroxychloroquine
Censorship Decision
BY TYLER DURDEN MONDAY, FEB 01, 2021 - 12:04
Facebook's independent Oversight Board has ruled against the
social media giant's decision to remove an October 2020 post touting
hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) - the antimalarial which Democrats and their media
surrogates were cautiously optimistic about until former President Trump
promoted it.
"In October 2020, a user posted a video and accompanying text in French in a public Facebook group related to COVID-19," explained the board on its website. "The post alleged a scandal at the Agence Nationale de Sécurité du Médicament (the French agency responsible for regulating health products), which refused to authorize hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin for use against COVID-19, but authorized and promoted remdesivir. The user criticized the lack of a health strategy in France and stated that “[Didier] Raoult’s cure” is being used elsewhere to save lives. The user’s post also questioned what society had to lose by allowing doctors to prescribe in an emergency a “harmless drug” when the first symptoms of COVID-19 appear."
The Oversight Board noted that the user's post did not encourage
people to take HCQ without a prescription, and was instead "opposing a
governmental policy and aimed to change that policy."
"The combination of medicines that the post claims
constitute a cure are not available without a prescription in France and the
content does not encourage people to buy or take drugs without a prescription.
Considering these and other contextual factors, the Board noted that Facebook
had not demonstrated the post would rise to the level of imminent harm, as required
by its own rule in the Community Standards," the Board continued, adding
that Facebook
failed to satisfactorily explain why it removed the post, and
that their 'misinformation and imminent harm rule' is too
vague - recommending that the company clarify its
standards on health misinformation.
"The Board also found Facebook's
misinformation and imminent harm rule, which this post is said to have
violated, to be inappropriately vague and inconsistent with international human
rights standards," wrote the panel. "A patchwork of
policies found on different parts of Facebook's website make it difficult for
users to understand what content is prohibited. Changes to Facebook's COVID-19
policies announced in the company's Newsroom have not always been reflected in
its Community Standards, while some of these changes even appear to contradict
them."
One can't help but wonder how many lives the left's
politicization of HCQ may have cost, after several studies have
concluded that when taken early into a COVID-19 infection, the antimalarial has
been shown to reduce mortality.
The
currently completed retrospective studies and randomized trials have generally
shown these findings: 1) when started late in the hospital course and for short
durations of time, antimalarials appear to be ineffective, 2) when started earlier in the hospital course,
for progressively longer durations and in outpatients, antimalarials may reduce
the progression of disease, prevent hospitalization, and are associated with
reduced mortality. -American Journal of
Medicine
One Brazilian study found 4.6x fewer hospitalizations in patients who took HCQ and azithromycin within seven days of infection, while a retrospective study of cases in Detroit showed a 71% reduction in mortality with early treatment using the HCQ / Azithromycin combination.
A meta-analysis of 105,040 cases from 20 studies in 9 countries found a reduction in mortality by up to three times in groups treated early with Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin.
Unfortunately for those hoping to use HCQ, Trump made the mistake of endorsing it, setting off a cascade of anti-HCQ propaganda which has been largely disproven.
We're beginning to like this Oversight Board.
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