Facebook and Twitter censored a video clip of President Donald Trump’s recent interview on Fox News’ Fox & Friends over alleged coronavirus “misinformation.”
Facebook said it removed the video of the interview because President Trump claimed that children have heightened immunity to coronavirus.
The Trump campaign stands by this claim, but Facebook disagrees, and used it as an excuse to prevent American citizens using the platform from hearing what their president has to say.
This is despite repeated assurances from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the platform will not censor politicians.
In a speech at Georgetown University in October 2019, Zcukberg said “we think people should be able to hear what politicians have to say.”
It seems policy has now changed at Facebook, which is now censoring what the President is saying.
“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,” said Facebook spokesman Andy Stone in a statement attempting to justify the takedown.
Twitter quickly followed Facebook’s lead, taking down the video, which had been posted by an official Trump campaign account, shortly after Facebook took action.
In a statement, Courtney Parella slammed Facebook for its censorship of the President.
“Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth, said Parella. According to Parella, Trump was “stating a fact that children are less susceptible to the coronavirus.”
Using the Chinese virus as a justification, social media platforms have over the past few months taken unprecedented steps to censor the President, his supporters, and conservative media.
Last week, Facebook censored a viral video posted by Breitbart News of an organization of medical professionals, America’s Frontline Doctors, holding a press conference on coronavirus alongside Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC).
Other tech giants once again followed Facebook’s lead, including Twitter, which deleted Breitbart News’ post and locked it out of its account for over four days.
Are you an insider at Google, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, or any other tech company who wants to confidentially reveal wrongdoing or political bias at your company? Reach out to Allum Bokhari at his secure email address allumbokhari@protonmail.com.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. His book #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election is out in September.