Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California deleted a tweet falsely claiming that COVID-19 was a leading cause of death for children after the Twitter CEO ripped him for publishing “misleading data.”
Lieu was responding to a tweet by author David Zweig which revealed that Twitter censored Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorf for tweeting that people with natural immunity nor children needed to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Lieu claimed that Zweig’s screenshot of the internal Twitter documents was “misleading.” (RELATED: Ex-FBI Twitter Lawyer Questioned Why Trump Wasn’t Censored Over ‘Optimistic’ COVID Tweet, Docs Show)
“People of all ages at high risk from COVID generally benefit from vaccines,” Lieu tweeted, according to screenshots. “Prior natural immunity may last only a few months. COVID appears to be a leading cause of death for children.”
Ted Lieu deleted this tweet after @elonmusk fact checked him. pic.twitter.com/0grMjuZmtj
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 26, 2022
He later deleted his tweet after Musk wrote that the tweet shared “misleading data” and tagged Twitter’s Community Notes feature, which adds context to potentially misleading Tweets, according to its website.
Ted is linking to misleading data @CommunityNotes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 26, 2022
Lieu then tweeted a revised version of his original tweet which claimed “COVID can still be lethal for some children.”
Dear @davidzweig: The tweet you cite is in fact misleading. People of all ages at high risk from COVID generally benefit from vaccines. Prior natural immunity may last only a few months. COVID can still be lethal for some children. https://t.co/D5V0SlZFDZ https://t.co/pM5q5dcO2Q
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 26, 2022
Lieu defended his tweets on Monday evening and claimed that he “follow[s] the facts wherever they may lead” and revises his stances “if there are new facts.”
Thank you @kristenmag for your compliment. I actually follow the facts wherever they may lead, and will revise my views if there are new facts. https://t.co/gOpL8MtFB2
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) December 26, 2022
Zweig’s thread was the latest addition to the near month-long release of the Twitter Files, which are a series of tweets from journalists that reveal internal Twitter documents detailing how the company worked to censor and suppress information and users. Monday’s posts showed that both the Trump and Biden administrations worked with the platform to suppress information regarding COVID-19.
Lieu, Zweig and Twitter did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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