Since the beginning of the year, and most recently, since the pandemic started, a social media vs. President Trump war emerged. The fact that the president of one of the world's most influential countries posts fabricated news about the hottest topic of the moment doesn't help the social media networks fight against misinformation.
Yesterday, Facebook and Twitter removed some posts of Donald Trump, which violated the companies' COVID-19 misinformation policies. If last week the president posted a clip that praised hydroxychloroquine as the cure for COVID-19, he now posted about children's immunity to the virus.
Excerpts from an interview that Donald Trump gave at a news channel have been posted and reposted by the president himself and the accounts in charge of his presidential campaign. During the infamous interview, President Trump stated that children are “virtually immune” to Coronavirus.
The information has been dismissed by the US public health department, as some children died from the infection. But what is true, is that kids are less affected by COVID-19.
From Twitter’s point of view, until the harmful content is deleted, the account in charge of the election campaign will no longer be able to tweet.
Facebook replaced the post with a message reading, "This content isn't available right now."
Yesterday, the market’s reaction was mixed. Facebook closed lower by 0.28%, while Twitter gained more than 1%. During today’s pre-market session, Facebook is still on a downward trend at -0.06%. At the same time, Twitter added 0.57%.
Read more about the relationship between Trump and social media outlets here and here!
Sources: marketwatch.com, bbc.com, finance.yahoo.com