Facebook, Twitter take down Trump’s posts over coronavirus misinformation

Facebook Inc. and Twitter on Wednesday took down a post by U.S. President Donald Trump for violating rules against sharing misinformation about the coronavirus.

The post shared by POTUS contained a video clip, from an interview with Fox & Friends earlier in the day, in which PresidentTrump claimed that children are “almost immune” to COVID-19.

According to the Facebook spokesman, The video included false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19, which is a violation of Facebook policies around harmful COVID misinformation.

It was the first time when Facebook had removed a Trump post for coronavirus misinformation, the company’s spokesman said.

Facebook also appeared to be the first reported instance of the social media company taking down a post from the president for breaching its misinformation rules.

Twitter has also taken down a post retweeted by Trump pointing to a misleading viral video about the coronavirus but left up clips of the president suggesting scientists should investigate using light or disinfectant on patients.
A tweet containing the video that was posted by the Trump campaign’s @TeamTrump account and shared by the president was also later hidden by Twitter Inc TWTR.R for breaking its COVID-19 misinformation rules.

A Twitter spokesman said that the @TeamTrump account owner would be required to remove the tweet before they could tweet again.

Twitter said those remarks expressed a wish for treatment, rather than a literal call for action.

Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman with the campaign said that the Trump campaign accused the companies of bias against the president, saying Trump had stated a fact. “Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth”.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while adults make up most of the known COVID-19 cases to date, some children and infants have been sick with the disease and they can also transmit it to others.

An analysis by the World Health Organization of 6 million infections between Feb. 24 and July 12 found that the share of children aged 5-14 years was about 4.6%.

However, The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, During a briefing at the White House, Trump had repeated his claim that the virus had little impact on children.

“Children handle it very well,” he told reporters. “If you look at the numbers, in terms of mortality, fatalities … for children under a certain age … their immune systems are very very strong and very powerful. They seem to be able to handle it very well and that’s according to every statistical claim.”