Twitter deletes post from Minister of the Environment with Covid-19 disinformation

After the minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, and senator Flávio Bolsonaro posted an out of context video of the Brazilian medic Dráuzio Varella, Twitter determined that the tweets should be erased. Both suggested that Varella was downsizing the gravity of the virus. A Varella’s spokesperson said the usage of the video was “political” and promoted “disinformation”.

This was not the first time that minister Salles used his social media profile as a medium to spread fake news. In 2019, he tweeted false information about a Greenpeace ship, correlating it to the oil spillage that struck Brazil’s coastline in August.