Facebook removes Trump post over false Covid-19 claim for first time

08/08/2020

Video in which Trump wrongly said kids were ‘almost immune’ from illness also prompted Twitter to ban president’s re-election campaign account

By Julia Carrie Wong
Thu 6 Aug 2020

Facebook has removed a post from Donald Trump’s page for spreading false information about the coronavirus, a first for the social media company that has been harshly criticized for repeatedly allowing the president to break its content rules.

The post included video of Trump falsely asserting that children were “almost immune from Covid-19” during an appearance on Fox News. There is evidence to suggest that children who contract Covid-19 generally experience milder symptoms than adults do. However, they are not immune, and some children have become severely ill or died from the disease.

“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,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

The Twitter account for Trump’s re-election campaign, @TeamTrump, also posted the video, which Twitter said violated its rules. “The account owner will be required to remove the Tweet before they can Tweet again,” a company spokesperson said of @TeamTrump.

During a press briefing on Wednesday afternoon, Trump repeated his false claims about children and the disease.