Facebook removes Trump post due to coronavirus misinformation

For the first time, Facebook has removed a post on President Trump's personal page that spread misinformation about the coronavirus.

The post featured a clip of Trump's interview with Fox News that aired on Wednesday morning. Trump claimed that children are "almost immune" or "virtually immune" from COVID-19, and as such should be able to go back to school in the fall. Children can in fact transmit the virus and have died of it.

Andy Stone, a Facebook policy spokesman, told NBC News the 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."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Earlier Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that the Trump campaign has run several ads on Facebook with false claims about former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. The social network's independent fact checkers flagged the ads, but their findings were never shared with users.