Facebook has blocked the official page of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro because it would spread disinformation about the coronavirus.
A Facebook spokesperson told Reuters news agency that a treatment method was promoted on the page, without proof that it can fight the virus.
Maduro described in January a drug derived from thyme as a “panacea” that would neutralize the coronavirus without side effects. However, according to doctors, this claim is not endorsed by science. These are the drops ‘Carvativir’.
Facebook has also taken a video offline in which Maduro promotes the drug because it goes against social media platform policies that say no false claims should be made about anything that would prevent or cure COVID-19.
“We follow the World Health Organization guidelines that state that there is currently no cure for the virus,” said a company spokesman. The president’s Facebook page has now been blocked for thirty days, which means nothing can be posted on it.
But visitors can still read the page. During a nationally televised speech, the controversial leftist president had shown a bottle containing the drops in January.
According to official figures, Venezuela has so far registered 154,905 corona infections, and 1,543 people have died from Covid-19. However, according to critics, the actual figures are likely to be higher because they do a little testing.
