Facebook Removes Trump Post Falsely Claiming Children Are 'Almost Immune' To COVID-19
MENLO PARK (CNN/CBS SF) -- Bay Area-based social media giant Facebook on Wednesday confirmed it had removed a post from President Donald Trump's page for containing false claims about COVID-19.
The post was a video of an interview the President gave to Fox News on Wednesday morning.
"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 said in a statement Wednesday.
Stone added the specific comments that had run afoul of Facebook's rules were Trump's false claims about children being almost immune to the virus.
The removal marks the latest instance when the social media company owned by Mark Zuckerberg has taken action on one of the President's posts. Last month, the site flagged a post Trump made about mail-in ballots leading to a "corrupt election," though it did not fact-check the post.
In June, the site took down ads run by President Trump's re-election campaign for breaching its policies on organized hate groups.
Facebook has weathered significant criticism in recent months over inaction on the President's posts, including a "virtual walkout" by the company's workers in early June and the #StopHateForProfit boycott of advertising on both Facebook and Twitter that grew to 500 companies in July that included Coca Cola, Verizon and North Face.
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