Facebook Takes Down Trump’s Post Claiming Children Are ‘Virtually Immune’ From COVID-19
Facebook removed a video post from President Trump on Wednesday for violating the company’s policies around COVID-19 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,” a company spokesperson told CNN. Facebook also said this is the first time the company has taken down a post from the president due to COVID-19 misinformation.
The post in question was a video clip from a Wednesday morning phone interview Trump did with Fox News, where he called for schools to reopen, said children were “virtually immune” from COVID-19 and also repeated his claim that the virus would just “go away.”
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“It doesn’t have an impact on them,” Trump said of people under the age of 18 in the clip, which was also shared on his Twitter account. “They are virtually immune from this problem and we have to open our schools.”
While COVID-19 does appear to affect young children differently than adults, children can still be infected by the virus and spread the disease.
Representatives for Facebook and Twitter did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
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