Facebook, Twitter Pull Trump Video For Spreading Bad COVID Information
President Donald Trump's post linked to a Fox News interview in which he claims kids are “virtually immune” to the coronavirus. Facebook said that the “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.”
The Washington Post:
Facebook Removes A Coronavirus Misinformation Post From Trump For The First Time Ever
Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday took extraordinary action against President Trump for spreading coronavirus misinformation after his official and campaign accounts broke their rules, respectively. Facebook removed from Trump’s official account the post of a video clip from a Fox News interview in which he said children are “almost immune” from covid-19. Twitter required his Team Trump campaign account to delete a tweet with the same video, blocking it from tweeting in the interim. (Kelly, 8/5)
The Wall Street Journal:
Facebook, Twitter Take Down Video Of Trump Saying Children ‘Almost Immune’ From Covid-19
The video clip—a portion of an interview aired on Fox News—attracted roughly 450,000 views on Facebook before it was taken down, according to CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned analytics company. It also drew thousands of comments and was reshared nearly 2,000 times. The action marked the first time that Facebook removed Mr. Trump’s posts for violating its coronavirus misinformation rules, a Facebook spokesman said. “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,” the spokesman said. (Seetharaman, 8/5)
The New York Times:
Facebook Removes Trump Campaign’s Misleading Coronavirus Video
The action on Wednesday did not signal a change to Facebook’s fierce defense of free expression. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has said the social network is not an arbiter of truth and that it is in the public’s interest to see what political leaders post — even if they include falsehoods by politicians like Mr. Trump. Mr. Zuckerberg has stood by the position, even as other social media companies like Twitter have ramped up their rule enforcement with regard to the president’s speech. (Kang and Frenkel, 8 /5)
And the Trump administration responds —
Fox News:
Facebook Removes Trump Post Over Coronavirus Misinformation Rules; Twitter Also Clamps Down
Trump campaign spokesperson Courtney Parella told Fox News that President Trump 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," she added. "Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth.” (Manfredi, 8/5)
