© AFP / Magazine image
A video of an interview with Fox television was shared on Trump’s Facebook page, in which he claimed children were “almost immune” to the coronavirus. LEAF PICTURE / AFP Olivier Douliery
AFP
Social media service Facebook has removed a publication about the coronavirus from the website of US President Donald Trump. The reason given was the misleading and harmful information about the coronavirus contained in the message.
A video of an interview with Fox television was shared on Trump’s Facebook page, in which he claimed children were “almost immune” to the coronavirus.
A Facebook spokesman told news agency AFP that the false claim violates the service’s operating principles.
Trump later defended his comments at a press conference at the White House.
– I’m talking about being immune to getting very sick. If you look at children, they get rid of it (the coronavirus) very easily, Trump said.
Twitter has also limited Trump’s campaign crowd tweeting because of sharing the same video, CNN says.
Last week, the instant messaging service Twitter removed the video Trump shared because of false information. The doctors of medicine who appeared in the video argued that face masks and movement restrictions were unnecessary in combating a coronary pandemic.
Facebook has previously refrained from removing publications
The removal of the Facebook publication is a rare move by a company that has in the past been quite reluctant to interfere in the president’s communications. In the past, Facebook has only removed a post that used the Nazi symbol from Trump’s campaign page.
In July, Facebook added revised information to Trump’s release, in which he claimed postal voting would lead to fraudulent elections.
The company has been severely criticized for its content policies on both sides of the political field in the United States.
Opponents of Trump say Facebook has been reluctant to intervene in hate speech and false news spread on behalf of the president. Proponents of the president say Facebook is biased against conservative opinions.
The social media giant has also received widespread criticism from civil society organizations for failing to share false information on their website from scratch.
In June, the company was subjected to a corporate advertising boycott because they said Facebook would not address the hate speech spread on the service. Criticism escalated after the company did not remove Trump’s violent post from the service.
Facebook has later said it is committed to removing all posts that could lead to violence or mislead people into the voting process.