Facebook removes Trump’s post for the very first time, Twitter blocks his campaign account
Facebook and Twitter took aim at US President Donald Trump and his campaign Wednesday over a video post where he contended that children are “almost immune” to the coronavirus, a claim they said amounted to “misinformation.”
Within an extraordinary move, Facebook removed the clip from the president’s account-the first-time it has removed one of is own posts for violating its content rules.
The video-an excerpt from a Fox News interview-“includes false claims a group of men and women is immune from COVID-19 that is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation,” a Facebook spokesperson told AFP.
Twitter meanwhile said it had blocked Trump’s official campaign account over a tweet containing the same video, in which Trump made the case for reopening US schools come September.
A spokesperson for the San Francisco-based service told AFP the tweet was “in violation of the Twitter rules on COVID-19 misinformation,” adding that the campaign would need to take it off before being permitted to tweet again.
Soon thereafter, the @TeamTrump account was active, suggesting the contested video had been taken down.
“A later date, another display of Silicon Valley’s flagrant bias from this president, where in fact the rules are only enforced in one direction,” the Trump campaign’s deputy national press secretary Courtney Parella said in a statement.
“The president was stating an undeniable fact that children are less vunerable to the coronavirus,” she said. “Social media companies aren't the arbiters of truth.”
Deeply contentious
Health officials have urged persons of all age groups to safeguard themselves against contact with the coronavirus.
Trump defended his comments about the virus’s influence on children when challenged during a White House press briefing earlier Wednesday.
“I’m talking about (being immune) from getting very sick,” Trump said.
“In the event that you look at children After all they could throw it off very easily.”
How likely children are to contract or spread the coronavirus has turned into a deeply contentious issue in the US, with reopening schools necessary to enabling many parents to go back to work.
Trump has been calling for both businesses and schools to reopen within a push to revive the united states economy, whose health will play a significant factor in the coming presidential election.
An increasing number of US school districts have opted however against in-person classes come September, opting to remain online-only before pandemic has abated.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has concluded that children may actually transmit COVID-19 less than adults, and that lots of schools could re-open in the months ahead provided they take precautions such as for example social distancing and tracking local transmission rates.
Children are regarded as far less more likely to fall seriously ill or die from the virus: less than one percent of children who test positive for COVID-19 finish up dying, according to a Europe-wide study released in June.
The analysis authors said the real percentage is likely lower still, since many children with mild or no symptoms would not have already been tested at all.
Medical speculation
Facebook’s move came since it faces strong pressure to clamp down on misinformation-which has flourished through the pandemic-including from world leaders, until recently protected by its hands-off policy on political speech.
A coalition of activists has pressed Facebook to become more aggressive in removing hateful content and misinformation-with 1,000 advertisers joining a boycott aiming to crank up the pressure.
The social media giant had put a disclaimer last month on a post from Trump claiming mail-in voting would cause a “corrupt” election, and in June it removed advertisings by Trump’s campaign containing a symbol employed by Nazi Germany.
Trump has been repeatedly accused of spreading misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic-which has killed more than 150,000 Americans-including the now-infamous musing that virus victims could quite possibly be injected with disinfectant.
After a brief change in tone last month, he recently reverted to medical speculation, criticising his own top virus expert-and praising an eccentric preacher-doctor touting conspiracy theories.
Twitter the other day took the rare step of removing clips tweeted by Trump from a video-earlier deleted by Facebook-in that your doctor-preacher Stella Immanuel and a group of doctors proclaimed that masks are unnecessary and that hydroxychloroquine can defeat the coronavirus.
