Facebook and Twitter, crushed on the right and on the left for their content moderation policies, toughened their tone with Donald Trump on Wednesday: the two social networks deleted or had removed a video that violated their rules on disinformation around the pandemic of Covid-19. The clip showed the US president explaining in an interview with Fox News that children were "almost completely" immune, by their age, to the new coronavirus.
"Dangerous misinformation around the disease"
"This video includes false claims that a certain group of people are not likely to catch Covid-19, which violates our policy on dangerous disinformation around the disease," a door told AFP. - Facebook speak. This is the first time that Facebook has directly censored Donald Trump.
Twitter has gone even further. The network 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.
"Here is more proof that Silicon Valley is biased against the president"
"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. "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. 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.