It has been less than a week since YouTube axed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' video questioning the effectiveness of masks, and now he is back with another roundtable discussion restating his previous claims.
On Monday, April 12, DeSantis and a group of scientists — including Dr. Scott Atlas, Stanford University's Jay Bhattacharya, and Harvard professor Dr. Martin Kulldorff — met again to discuss COVID-19. However, the stage quickly transformed into an outlet for the group to discuss their grievances about the influence of Big Tech power of censorship by way of social media, according to The Herald Tribune.
"What we're really witnessing is Orwellian," DeSantis said. "It's a Big Tech, corporate media collusion. And the end result is that the narrative is always right. Well, I don't think that's what the American people want."
DeSantis' latest remarks come amid a push to advance legislation that would give the state the ability to reprimand YouTube and other social media networks for account suspensions and/or blocking users and political candidate accounts.
"You don't think there are people in the state of Florida concerned about censorship? Or seeing how massive companies are controlling the terms of debate on some of the most important issues facing our country and the world?" DeSantis said.
The footage of DeSantis' previous roundtable discussion was removed by YouTube after the video-sharing network cited the video's violation of community standards.
According to YouTube, the video "content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19." At the time, a YouTube representative released a statement about the video.
"YouTube has clear policies around COVID-19 medical misinformation to support the health and safety of our users," a rep said in a statement on Thursday, April 8. "We removed AIER's video because it included content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19."