Both Twitter and Facebook have removed a post shared by President Trump for breaking their rules against spreading coronavirus misinformation.
Twitter temporarily blocked the Trump election campaign account from tweeting until it removed a post with a video clip from a Fox News interview from Wednesday morning, in which the president urged schools to reopen, falsely claiming that children are “almost immune from this disease.”
Facebook also removed a post containing the same video from Trump’s personal page. Both Facebook and Twitter said the post violated their rules on COVID-19 misinformation.
Research has shown that while children tend to get infected with the coronavirus less often and have milder symptoms than adults, kids can still contract and spread it. Some have gotten seriously ill and even died.
“This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation,” said Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesperson.
“The @TeamTrump Tweet you referenced is in violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation. The account owner will be required to remove the Tweet before they can Tweet again,” said Twitter spokesperson Trenton Kennedy.
The Trump campaign removed the tweet and has since been tweeting again.
“The President was stating a fact that children are less susceptible to the coronavirus,” said Courtney Parella, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, in response to the Facebook removal. “Another day, another display of Silicon Valley’s flagrant bias against this President, where the rules are only enforced in one direction. Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth.”
