Suspend Account Prof. Heneghan, Epidemiologist From Oxford, Twitter Is Considered A Violation Of Freedom Of Speech

Prof. Carl Heneghan, his account was suspended by Twitter because it was considered misleading. (photo: twitter @carlheneghan)

JAKARTA - Twitter has been accused of censoring a post after placing a 'fake news' warning in a Mail on Sunday article about an Oxford University study that found the UK's death toll from the coronavirus may be lower than expected.

Despite allowing accounts spouting malicious anti-vax claims, the social media giant banned prominent academic Carl Heneghan from its platform after he shared the story last weekend.

Thousands of deaths could have been WRONGLY blamed on Covid https://t.co/oWPGX5pHVA via @MailOnline

— Carl Heneghan (@carlheneghan) March 20, 2022

It raised a warning to those who shared the Mail Online link to the article, saying: 'Warning: this link may not be secure. The link you are trying to access has been identified by Twitter or our partners as potentially spammy or unsafe.'

However, after a series of protests, Heneghan's account was finally restored by Twitter. On Monday, March 28, in the early hours of West Indonesia time, he tweeted that his account had been restored by twitter.

Thanks, everyone, for the messages of support - for now, I'm still here.

— Carl Heneghan (@carlheneghan) March 27, 2022

Last weekend's article by Deputy Health Editor, Eve Simmons, reported the findings of a new analysis suggesting the 164,000 death toll from COVID-19 in the UK may have been overestimated.

The researchers reached the conclusion after combing through 800 responses to Freedom of Information requests to nursing homes and hospitals to find flaws in the way the deaths were recorded.

The row comes as tech giants may find themselves given sweeping powers in a new Online Security Bill, which campaigners fear may have the effect of restricting free speech by allowing social media networks to remove legitimate material because they disagree with it.

Twitter emailed Professor Heneghan, an award-winning epidemiologist, saying his account, which has 110,000 followers, had been 'locked down' for 'violating its policy of spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19'.

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Twitter added: 'We require the removal of content that may pose a risk to public health, including content that directly contradicts guidelines from official global and local sources of public health information. Please note that repeated violations may result in the permanent suspension of your account.'

Prof Heneghan, director of the Oxford Center for Evidence-Based Medicine and involved in the research, last night described the episode as an 'attack on press freedom'.

"This is good journalism based on trying to get to the truth, but what seems to be happening here is people are saying that when you do that and we don't like your conclusions, we will take you down," Heneghan said, as quoted by the DailyMail.

About 6.3 million people follow Twitter accounts that spread anti-vaccine misinformation, according to his organization's estimates.

"Like all major technology platforms, Twitter has a disgraceful track record of allowing snake oil sellers to distribute misinformation about vaccines," Ahmed said.

Toby Young, Director of the Free Speech Union, also said that Twitter is not what it used to be. “'Twitter once stood for free speech but those days are long gone. Now they are enforcers of progressive orthodoxy, whether it's about transgender women in sports or the pandemic," Young said.

"Anyone who opposes the orthodoxy is punished, even if they know more about the subject than Twitter's "fact checkers", which Professor Heneghan clearly does," Young added.

Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said the treatment of Prof Heneghan was completely unreasonable given the amount of anti-vax propaganda on Twitter.