Twitter removes Trump COVID advisor tweet that questioned use of masks

Twitter said it took down a tweet from a member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force for violating the social media network’s policy on misleading information about COVID-19.

The post from Scott Atlas read, “Masks work? NO” followed by several posts questioning the effectiveness of masks in combating the spread of the coronavirus.

Twitter told The Hill in a statement that Atlas’ tweet “was in violation of our COVID-19 Misleading Information Policy” that “prohibits sharing false or misleading content related to COVID-19 which could lead to harm.”

Twitter has flagged or removed several tweet relating to the pandemic and voting, including posts by President Trump, as it gets closer to Election Day.

In August, the social media network took down a post from Trump that retweeted a false claim that only a 9,000 people had actually died from COVID-19 while the rest had “2-3 other serious illnesses.”

Also in August, a video tweeted by Eric Trump that showed the president’s face superimposed over a video of Roy Williams and University of North Carolina men’s basketball players, was flagged for a copyright violation.

Twitter came under fire last week after it opted to not allow the sharing of a link from a New York Post story about Hunter Biden in tweets and direct messages, prompting concerns about how the online platform would perform on election night.