Newsmax reporter permanently banned from Twitter for posting Covid misinformation
CNN
By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business
Twitter has permanently suspended Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson for repeatedly posting blatant misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines. The ban comes about a week after she was briefly suspended for violating the company’s policy.
Robinson’s account was “permanently suspended for repeated violations of our Covid-19 misinformation policy,” a Twitter spokesperson said. The decision came soon after Robinson’s initial suspension was lifted, and was apparently prompted by additional tweets containing vaccine misinformation. Prior to her ban, she had more than 400,000 followers.
Last week, Robinson was suspended from the platform for seven days following a tweet stating that Covid-19 vaccines contain tracking devices linked to the devil.
“Dear Christians: the vaccines contain a bioluminescent marker called LUCIFERASE so that you can be tracked. Read the last book of the New Testament to see how this ends,” Robinson wrote in a now-deleted tweet. That claim has been debunked: The Covid-19 vaccines do not contain luciferase.
Robinson has tweeted similar misinformation in the past, writing in September that if people want to avoid “taking the Mark of the Beast,” then they should not get “anything that injects LUCIFERASE into your body.” That tweet, as well as others that are steeped in conspiracy theories, were posted on her now-deleted feed.
Newsmax, a hard-right TV network that’s currently being sued for defamation by a voting technology company, said last week it has pulled Robinson from its airwaves while it reviews her social media posts.
Twitter has been cracking down on misinformation surrounding Covid-19 and vaccines. Users are allowed to report tweets that contain misinformation to the social media platform.
Social media companies have increasingly come under criticism for facilitating the spread of political misinformation during recent election cycles and, more recently, the proliferation of Covid-19 and anti-vaccine misinformation.
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