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Coronavirus: Twitter removes Trump campaign post containing misinformation

Social media giant Twitter on Wednesday said it removed a tweet from President Donald Trump’s campaign account that contained a video clip from a Fox News interview that contained false claims, The Washington Post reported. In the interview, the president said that children are “almost immune” from the coronavirus.

The move does not prevent the president from tweeting from his own Twitter account.

Facebook earlier said it also removed a post from the president’s main page, which contained the video.

Twitter hid the post by @TeamTrump, according to the Post. The action by Twitter did not involve the president’s Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump.

Twitter spokesperson Liz Kelley told the newspaper that the tweet by @TeamTrump “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.”

The account appeared to have the ability to tweet following Twitter’s statement, CNN reported. That would suggest the campaign had complied with the order. Twitter confirmed to CNN that the campaign’s account can tweet again.

Courtney Parella, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said the president was “stating a fact that children are less susceptible to the coronavirus.”

Parella said “social media companies are not the arbiters of truth,” CNN reported.

Wednesday marked the first time Facebook has removed a post from the president for violating the company’s policies on coronavirus misinformation.

“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,” Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone told the Post.

A Trump campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.

In the removed video, Trump is heard in a telephone interview saying schools should open. He goes on to say, “If you look at children, children are almost -- and I would almost say definitely -- but almost immune from this disease,” adding that children have stronger immune systems.

More than 240,000 children in the United States have been documented to have COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately 300 children have contracted a rare inflammatory disease due to COVID-19 -- multi-system inflammatory syndrome -- and six have died, the Post reported.


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