Facebook Deletes Trump Post Claiming Children are 'Almost Immune' to COVID-19

Social media giant Facebook, for the first time, has removed a post from US President Donald Trump in which he claimed that children were "almost immune" to COVID-19, saying it violated its policy against spreading "misinformation" about the novel coronavirus.

The post in question was a video clip of a Trump interview on News Channel uploaded by the Trump campaign on Wednesday. The US President claims in the clip that children are "almost immune" to COVID-19.

While much remains unknown about the novel coronavirus, children can contract COVID-19 and are believed to be able to spread it to others, even without symptoms. "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," Andy Stone, a Facebook policy spokesperson said in a statement.

A connect to the post presently occupies



to a page that says, "This Content Isn't Available Right Now." It is the first occasion when that Facebook has expelled a post from Trump, as opposed to marking it, as it has done before, making it an uncommon occurrence where it has been eager to edit the president.

In June, Facebook removed ads that the Trump campaign posted that featured a symbol Nazis used to classify political prisoners during World War II. Twitter also removed a link to the same video clip, which the official Trump Twitter account @TeamTrump shared earlier on Wednesday. Links to the tweet now point Twitter users to a message that the tweet violated Twitter's rules and is no longer available.

The Trump campaign accused Facebook of "flagrant bias." "The President was stating a fact that children are less susceptible to the coronavirus," Courtney Parella, the campaign's deputy national press secretary, said in an emailed statement.