On July 28, Fox News chief White House correspondent John Roberts made the ignorant claim that “the president may have a legitimate argument” that he and his son, Donald Trump Jr., are being censored (though Roberts said “censured”) by Twitter after the social media company limited the younger Trump’s account functionality for 12 hours and forced him to delete a tweet violating Twitter’s policy against coronavirus misinformation, while an anti-Trump hashtag was also trending. 

The president does not have a legitimate argument that he and his son are being censored -- or censured -- by Twitter. Despite incessant claims otherwise, there is no evidence that social media censors conservatives. 

Roberts’ argument is that, while Trump Jr. was forced to delete a tweet sharing “research that sort of flies in the face of this idea that hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin is not any kind of an effective treatment for coronavirus,” an anti-Trump political group was also “allowed to run with the hashtag #TrumpKillsTexas merely as a fundraising ploy.”

The president’s son sharing conclusively debunked coronavirus misinformation as if it’s important factual information will directly endanger lives, moreso given that the pro-Trump right-wing media audience has a pathological distrust of mainstream media. The hashtag #TrumpKillsTexas does not compare.