As the most ancient of wisdom says:
"Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes."
This rule applies even when you're the adult son of the President of the United States. And Donald Trump Jr. seems to have an uncanny ability to become the butt of internet jokes with almost every stupid game he plays.
Most recently, he got temporarily restricted from Twitter for sharing medical misinformation.
The tweet has since been deleted to comply with Twitter's terms of service rules.
Jr. also had his account features limited and couldn't tweet until he deleted it. This fed his victim mentality like nothing else could.
Trump's spokesperson, Andrew Surabian notified Twitter of this "injustice."
Despite how some conservative sources have characterized it, Jr.'s account was not fully suspended.
Twitter stated he was merely asked to delete the tweet and they limited some account features for 12 hours as they would with anyone else who violates their terms of service.
Surbian asserts this is proof that "Big Tech" is interfering in the election and hampering free speech. Don Jr. is not running for public office and serves in no capacity in the federal government.
Twitter let out a collective sigh in the wake of Jr.'s partial "suspension."
So, what was in this video that got Jr. "suspended"?
Well, that's where things get scary.
Jr. shared a video shared by many on the right of a Houston doctor who claims hydroxychloroquine is the cure for our current pandemic and face masks are useless. This flies in the face of all other medical recommendations given by the CDC, the World Health Organization, the Mayo Clinic and just about everywhere else you look.
It's enough to become a laughingstock on its own.
In the video, Dr. Stella Immanuel makes claims she has successfully treated hundreds of patients with the controversial medication to much success.
Now, before you start trying to bulk order the medicine, you may want some more information. Like the fact that studies have not found any conclusive link between the drug and recovery from the current disease.
On top of that, Dr. Immanuel has also peddled other, might we say, "unconventional" causes and cures for diseases.
Like that time she claimed that gynecological problems are because demons and witches are having sex with you while you sleep, or that vaccines are being made with alien DNA to control the populace.
Basically, you'd have to be desperate to look to her as an authority on medical issues.
Dr. Immanuel claimed she and the fellow doctors in the video are part of a collective called Americas Frontline Doctors. Their website has been registered for less than two weeks, and at time of writing, their Squarespace trial had expired so the website was not visible.
Spreading misinformation during this pandemic can have deadly consequences. And if you have a platform that can spread to millions of people, you need to be careful with what you share.
And Jr. was anything but careful.
@thekalenallen/Threads
U.S. Mint
