Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been given a week long ban from YouTube and Facebook have taken down one of his videos after he made false claims suggesting that Covid-19 vaccines cause people to develop HIV and AIDS.
In the now deleted video which originally aired on Thursday 21st October, Bolsonaro chastised British people who have already received two doses of Covid-19 vaccines by bizarrely claiming that they are developing AIDS.
In the video the President was reading from a press clipping that spouted the conspiracy theory. There is no truth to the suggestion.
In a statement to the media Facebook confirmed that had removed the video.
“Our policies don’t allow claims that Covid-19 vaccines kill or seriously harm people,” the spokesperson said.
YouTube has also pulled the video from their service saying it was taken down for “violating our medical disinformation policy regarding Covid-19 for alleging that vaccines don’t reduce the risk of contracting the disease and that they cause other infectious diseases.”
YouTube previously removed 15 video from the Brazilian President for violating their guidelines. As a repeat offender he’s now been banned from posting for 7 days.
The country’s senate this week approved a report recommending that Bolsonaro should be charged with “crimes against humanity” for his inept handling of Brazil’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The lead author of the report Senator Renan Calheiros, said President Bolsonaro was “on the side of” dictators including Adolf Hitler and Augusto Pinochet.
“The chaos of Jair Bolsonaro’s government will enter history as the lowest level of human destitution,” Senator Calheiros said.
The 1,300 page report was prepared by the opposition controlled senate, and it is unlikely that Bolsonaro would ever face as charges as they would need to be put forward by the country’s Prosecutor-General, who was appointed to their position by the President.
OIP Staff
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