Twitter, Facebook Restrict Donald Trump's Accounts Over Harmaful COVID-19 Misinformation

Facebook has deleted a post by United States President Donald Trump saying it contained “harmful COVID misinformation”.

The post was a clip from an interview Trump gave to Fox News which suggests that young people are immune to the coronavirus, remarks that have been viewed as a strategy to force schools to reopen.

Twitter has also frozen a Trump campaign account until a tweet of the same clip was removed. A Facebook spokesperson said on Wednesday evening:

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.

It was the first time the social giant had taken action to remove content posted by the President based on its coronavirus-misinformation policy, but not the first time it has penalised Mr Trump over the content on his page.

Meanwhile, Twitter said a tweet by entrepreneur Elon Musk suggesting children are “essentially immune” to coronavirus did not break its rules.

More: BBC News