Twitter suspends account of Chinese virologist who claimed COVID-19 was 'man-made'

Twitter has suspended the account of Chinese virologist who recently publicly claimed that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was man-made in a Wuhan laboratory. According to reports, Li-Meng Yan’s account on the microblogging website was suspended on September 15 for ‘violating Twitter rules’ after she accused China, where the virus was originated, of intentionally manufacturing and releasing the virus that led to COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019. Her account with the username @LiMengYAN119 is still down with the displayed message saying, ‘Account suspended. Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules.'

Twitter has not yet commented on the account ban but the website, in May had started displaying caution messages on tweets that offered disputed claims on the coronavirus outbreak including the ones by US President Donald Trump. However, it still remains unclear if it was one single tweet that led to the suspension of Yan’s account but recently in a televised interview with Fox News, she had claimed that the account was made unfunctional because ‘they don’t want the people to know the truth’. 

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COVID-19 was ‘man-made’

The former researcher at the Hong Kong School of Public Health, Yan had said that the COVID-19 was caused by a ‘man-made’ virus and was ‘not from nature’. She even went forward to say that she had the evidence to back her claims of ‘what they have done, how (they did it)’. Yan has also accused the ‘scientific world’ of working together with the Chinese Communist Party and they want to prevent the ‘truth’ from getting out. According to her, this is the reason why she is ‘suspended’ and ‘suppressed’ because she is the ‘target’ of the Chinese Communist Party that they want ‘disappeared’. 

Following the controversial claims made by Yan on Fox News, the media outlet had reportedly also accused Facebook of censoring the interview by restricting them from sharing the clip on the social media giant. The part of the interview that is posted on the Tucker Carlson Tonight show's page now also has a caution message saying, 'False Information. This post repeats information about COVID-19 that independent fact-checkers say is false.'

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