Facebook Inc on Wednesday took down a post by US President Donald Trump, as the company believed that the post violated its rules against sharing misinformation about the coronavirus.
The post contained a video clip, from an interview with Fox & Friends earlier in the day, in which Trump claimed that children are “almost immune” to COVID-19.>
“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-19 misinformation,” a Facebook spokesman said.
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 for breaking its COVID-19 misinformation rules.>
A Twitter spokesman said the @TeamTrump account owner would be required to remove the tweet before they could tweet again.
YouTube, through a spokesman, said it had also pulled down the video for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies. However, the original interview remains available on the Fox News page on the platform. YouTube did not immediately respond to requests to clarify which videos were taken down.>
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,” said Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman with the campaign.>
Also read: The Pandemic Is Amplifying India’s Fake News Crisis>
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that 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.
World Health Organization analysed 6 million infected people between February 24 and July 12 and found that the share of children aged 5-14 years was about 4.6%.>
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. During a briefing at the White House, Trump 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.”>
It was the first time Facebook had removed a Trump post for coronavirus misinformation, the company’s spokesman said.
It 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 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.>
Twitter said those remarks expressed a wish for treatment, rather than a literal call for action.
It also left up a March post from Tesla Inc’s outspoken CEO Elon Musk stating that “kids are essentially immune” from the virus.>
Facebook has taken heat from lawmakers and its own employees in recent months for not taking action on inflammatory posts by Trump.>
The company has previously removed ads from Trump‘s election campaign for breaking misinformation rules, in that case around a national census.
It also took down both Trump posts and campaign ads that showed a red inverted triangle, a symbol the Nazis used to identify political prisoners, for violating its policy against organised hate.>
(Reuters)>