Facebook and Twitter are toughening up the tone with Donald Trump. The two social networks deleted, on Wednesday August 5, or had a video removed that violated their rules on disinformation around the Covid-19 pandemic.

The clip showed the US president explaining in an interview with Fox News that children were "almost completely" immune, by their age, to the virus. "This video includes false claims that a certain group of people do not is not likely to catch Covid-19, which violates our policy on dangerous disinformation around the disease, ”a Facebook spokesperson explained.

This is the first time that the social network has directly censored the American president. But Twitter has gone even further. The platform banned the head of state's campaign account from continuing to tweet until he removed the excerpt from the interview. 

The @TeamTrump account appeared to have complied with the platform's request, as it was still active Wednesday night and the video was not found. "The president was just stating one fact: children are less likely than adults to catch the coronavirus," responded Courtney Parella, a spokesperson for Donald Trump's campaign.

"Arbitrators of Truth"

"Here is further proof that Silicon Valley is biased against the president. The rules are only enforced one way. Social networks are not the arbiter of truth," she continued. The measures taken by the two Californian groups risk reviving the inclinations of the president and his party to launch reprisals against social networks, which they accuse of favoring the opposition.

According to Matthieu Mabin, correspondent of France 24 in Washington, the subject of this video "is not trivial" because it joins there "one of the main fights led by the White House, that is to say the reopening of schools in the country. Donald Trump is strongly in favor of it as he is in favor of the resumption of economic activity in general ".

They have been particularly uplifted since Twitter pinned a tweet from the president in late May, widely interpreted as inciting violence against anti-racism protesters. Furious, Donald Trump had signed a decree threatening to change a law that provides digital platforms with great freedom in terms of content moderation. His camp rallied around him.

During a hearing last week of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon before a parliamentary committee, the elected conservatives focused on these questions. "The 'Big Tech' have opened the hunt for conservatives, that's a fact," said Jim Jordan, a close ally of Donald Trump.

Facebook, for its part, has acquired a reputation for laxity with regard to political content, as it exempts the words of elected officials and candidates from its fact-checking program and allows political advertising, unlike Twitter.

"Children cope very well with the Chinese virus"

Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of the company, had refused to censor the president's message on the protests. Platforms do not have to play "arbiters of the truth", he insisted. But his decision sparked an uproar, including internally.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump reiterated his opinion on the immune system of children in the face of Covid-19. "Children deal with the Chinese virus very well. They can catch it, but the impact on them is small if you look at the numbers in terms of mortality. Young children have very, very strong immune systems," he said. he insisted at a press conference.

Read also >> Covid-19: the contagion of children, gray area of ​​the health crisis

In fact, young children represent an ultra-minority proportion of hospitalizations for Covid-19 and deaths have been very rare so far. However, studies have shown that although they are less vulnerable than adults, they can catch and transmit the disease. 

With AFP

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