Facebook and Twitter took decisive action Wednesday by President Donald Trump for spreading incorrect information about the coronavirus after their official and crusader accounts broke their rules.
The Washington Post reported that Facebook removed a post from a Fox News video clip from Trump’s official account in which the president told Fox News hosts that young people are “almost immune” to the coronavirus.
“This video includes false statements that a other people’s organization is immune to COVID-19, which is a violation of our policies related to COVID’s destructive misinformation,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said.
According to the Post, Twitter also said it was hiding a message from Team Trump’s account that contained the same video and that the crusade account could no longer tweet until the message was deleted.
Twitter spokeswoman Liz Kelley said the tweet “violates Twitter regulations on COVID-19 misinformation. The account owner will need to delete the Tweet before they can tweet again.”
Trump’s non-public Twitter account also shared Team Trump’s Fox News interview, but was deleted after the original tweet was blocked.
In the video clip, which comes when schools assess the dangers of reopening, President Trump tells Fox News presenters in an interview that schools will reopen and that he would say “almost definitely” that young people are immune to COVID-19.
But there are more than 240,000 cases of coronavirus reported in young people in the United States, according to the CDC, and many have milder symptoms, studies show that they can still infect others.
Resolution through social media corporations occurs when Twitter in specific has made it transparent that it will not allow the dissemination of incorrect information about the coronavirus on its platform.
Twitter has made headlines in recent months after reporting several of Trump’s tweets for incorrect information and “glorification” of violence. The social media company even prevented the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., from tweeting for 12 hours for violating his coronavirus misinformation regulations.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken longer to take steps that can prevent you, the president and your crusade from sharing false information.
Zuckerberg has been criticized for previous decisions that allowed President Trump and other percentages of misconceptions with potentially destructive consequences in arguing that the social media company would play the role of “truth arbitrator.”
Last June, Zuckerberg, however, announced that the company would eliminate messages that incited violence or attempted to suppress the vote, adding from political leaders. The company also stated that it would label posts that include hate speech or otherwise violate its policies.
The persistent effects and possible long-term effects of the virus, even for those with mild symptoms, such as young people, remain largely unknown. The Post reported that about three hundred young people contracted a rare inflammatory disease due to COVID-19 called multisistmic inflammatory syndrome, and six died.