The founder of the news media brand Just the News was suspended from Twitter for sharing an article that distinguished the legal differences between COVID-19 vaccine approvals.
John Soloman, a journalist who started the website, shared an article titled “Pfizer to continue distributing version of COVID-19 vaccine not fully approved by FDA.”
The article explored the legal distinctions between the Comirnaty vaccine, which has been fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, which was approved under Emergency Use Authorization.
Both products use the same ingredients and the same manufacturing process, but the Comirnaty vaccine was subject to more stringent requirements.
After Soloman shared his website’s article on the subject on Dec. 27, he received a notice that his account had been suspended for 12 hours. His tweet was marked as “unsafe” by the platform.
“It is outrageous and unfair that a story that is completely accurate and points out an important legal distinction between the two versions of vaccines gets blocked and my account suspended,” Solomon said via Just the News. “The distinction was important enough for a federal judge to note. The story and my post weren’t unsafe. The only threat is to the safety of the 1st Amendment afflicted by Twitter’s wrongheaded decision.”
Twitter said the tweet and its accompanying link violated the platform’s policy on “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information” regarding COVID-19.
Kate Zickel, Solomon’s social media manager, deleted the tweet rather than appeal the suspension. An appeal could have further restricted the account for an unknown amount of time.
Davis Younts, a lawyer who is quoted in the article, was not suspended for sharing the same link as Soloman.
Pfizer to continue distributing version of COVID-19 vaccine not fully approved by FDA https://t.co/iwzE37Piqc via @JustTheNews
— R. Davis Younts (@younts_r) December 26, 2021
The social media platform has blocked other users from sharing information about the COVID-19 virus and pandemic.
Alex Berenson, a former science reporter for The New York Times, was suspended over the summer for citing the results of a clinical trial conducted by Pfizer while questioning vaccine mandates.
“We require the removal of content that may pose a risk to people’s health, including content that goes directly against guidance from authoritative sources of global and local public health information,” Twitter said in its notice to Berenson.
Twitter did not return a request for comment from Just the News on its flounder’s suspension.
