YouTube suspends Sen. Ron Johnson over video discussing HCQ as coronavirus treatment

Social media giant YouTube this week suspended the account of Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson after the senator posted a video arguing in favor of using the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. 

The use of the drug in the fight against SARS-Cov-2 has been a political flashpoint since last year when then-President Donald Trump urged medical officials to consider using it in order to treat patients suffering from COVID-19. 

A major media and medical backlash followed Trump's claims, though multiple studies in the year since have suggested that HCQ may provide benefits to COVID-19 patients, particularly in outpatient settings. 

Yet YouTube this week locked Johnson out of his account for seven days after he posted a video in which he touted the alleged benefits of the drug to treat the virus.

YouTube did so "in accordance with our COVID-19 medical misinformation policies, which don't allow content that encourages people to use Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin to treat or prevent the virus," the company told Fox News.