Facebook, Twitter Remove Trump Post

President posted a video in which he claimed children are 'virtually immune' to COVID-19
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 6, 2020 12:28 AM CDT
Facebook, Twitter Remove Trump Coronavirus Post
President Donald Trump speaks during a briefing with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020, in Washington.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

One of President Trump's social media posts has been removed by both Facebook and Twitter after the social media giants declared it misinformation. The Trump campaign posted video from a Fox News interview in which Trump, while urging schools to resume in-person classes in the fall, declared that kids are "virtually immune" to the coronavirus. Trump himself then posted the same video to his personal Facebook page. Facebook removed the video, with a spokesperson explaining, "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." As for Twitter, the campaign was blocked from tweeting because, per a rep, the video violated "Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation. The account owner will be required to remove the Tweet before they can Tweet again."

The campaign did remove it, NPR reports. Politico reports Trump had also retweeted the video from his personal account, but that account was not sanctioned by Twitter. This is the first time Facebook has removed a Trump post about the coronavirus, though the social media company has previously removed campaign ads that used a Nazi symbol and has taken down other videos due to copyright complaints. Twitter, of course, has not been shy at all about flagging and deleting Trump posts. As for the comment on kids and the virus, "The president was stating a fact that children are less susceptible to the coronavirus,” a Trump campaign spokesperson says in a statement. "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." (More coronavirus stories.)

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