Facebook and Twitter Take Action Against Trump Posts Sharing Clip from Fox & Friends Interview, Citing Policies on Covid Misinformation (UPDATED)
Facebook took down a post shared by President Donald Trump Wednesday from his Fox & Friends interview, citing their policy on coronavirus misinformation.
The post the president shared included the clip of his claim on Fox that children are “almost immune from this disease,” as he argued for school reopenings.
Facebook took down the post hours later. Per the Washington Post:
“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 Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone.
This is the first time Facebook has taken down anything from the president for violating the company’s policies on covid misinformation.
The move from Facebook comes in the wake of similar action by Twitter, which labeled a May tweet from Trump on mail-in ballots as misinformation.
The Trump campaign responded in a statement obtained by NBC News saying, “The President was stating a fact that children are less susceptible to the coronavirus. 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.”
UPDATE — 8:38 pm ET: Twitter also took action against the president’s account.t. Per the Post:
Twitter hid the post and said he will not be able to tweet from his account until he deletes it, although he can appeal the decision.
Twitter spokeswoman Liz Kelley said the tweet “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.”
However, subsequent ABC and NBC reports clarified that’s not exactly what happened:
This not what happened, per Twitter spokesperson:
The @TeamTrump account was briefly locked out, not @realDonaldTrump which retweeted the post that violated Twitter's COVID-19 misinformation guidelines
President Trump was never banned from tweeting. https://t.co/DZA2ZBFh5x
— Will Steakin (@wsteaks) August 6, 2020
The reports that Twitter stopped President Trump from tweeting are incorrect, a Twitter spokesperson tells me. Do not believe those reports.
Twitter took action on a @TeamTrump tweet that included the video with Trump’s false statement about COVID-10, not on @realDonaldTrump.
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) August 6, 2020
UPDATE — 8:45 pm ET: The Post report has been corrected to clarify it’s not the president’s account being penalized:
Team Trump’s tweet of a video clip from a Fox News interview — in which President Trump said that children are “almost immune” from covid-19 — violates the site’s rules against misinformation, the company said. Twitter hid the post and said the account will not be able to tweet again until he deletes it, although it can appeal the decision.
Twitter spokeswoman Liz Kelley said the tweet “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.”
