With his release from the hospital, Donald Trump, still ill with Covid-19, resumed a sustained rate of publication on social networks. But Facebook had to delete a message published by the President of the United States on Tuesday, October 6, while Twitter decided to simply hide it. The two platforms consider that the message in question violated their rules on disinformation in matters of health: Donald Trump affirmed that “In most populations, Covid-19 is much less fatal than the flu”.
This while the new coronavirus is about three times more deadly than the flu, according to estimates from the Academy of Medicine. It is not fatal in the same proportions according to the age groups, but to affirm that “Most populations” die less from Covid-19 than from the flu is false, which explains why Facebook has chosen to moderate the message in question.
The second time only
“We are removing the wrong information related to the severity of Covid-19 and have therefore now removed this post” by Donald Trump, said Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone.
This is the second time this year that Facebook has deleted a message posted by the US president, campaigning for his re-election next November. In August, the social network also deleted a message from the president who wrongly claimed that children were “Immune to Covid-19”.
Twitter has, for its part, repeatedly masked messages from the president in recent months, for health reasons but also for Tweet which “Undermined confidence in the electoral process” – mainly messages claiming that the upcoming elections would be rigged.
Donald Trump and the Republican Party have been claiming for several years, without proof, that social networks show a “bias” favoring the left in the United States. Despite the “censorship” of which some supporters of the American president claim to be victims, the Facebook pages of his most ardent supporters remain among the most popular in the United States.
