Donald Trump: why Twitter and Facebook removed the US president’s posts after he claimed children are ‘almost immune’ to Covid-19

A campaign account was frozen after it posted inaccurate comments made by the President

Donald trump made inaccurate comments about the coronavirus during an interview with Fox News (Getty Images)

Facebook and Twitter have penalised Donald Trump after he and his campaign shared posts suggesting that children were “almost immune” to coronavirus.

The President shared a clip from an interview with Fox News in which he made the spurious claims. It was promptly removed by Facebook for containing "harmful Covid misinformation".

Twitter followed suit, freezing a Trump campaign account which shared the same clip.

Children are not immune from coronavirus, according to US public health advice.

How did Facebook and Twitter react?

Facebook and Twitter posted statements explaining their actions.

A Facebook spokesperson said: "This 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."

This isn’t the first time that the Silicon Valley giant have penalised the President, but was the first instance relating to its coronavirus misinformation policy.

Twitter said the campaign post "is in violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation".

"The account owner will be required to remove the Tweet before they can Tweet again," the company added.

President Trump’s son Donald Jr. was temporarily suspended last month for sharing Covid misinformation relating to hydroxychloroquine.

What did Donald Trump say?

Speaking to Fox and Friends on Wednesday, Trump made his argument for reopening schools following the coronavirus lockdown.

He said: "If you look at children, children are almost - and I would almost say definitely - almost immune from this disease.

"So few, they've got stronger, hard to believe, I don't know how you feel about it, but they've got much stronger immune systems than we do somehow for this.

"And they don't have a problem, they just don't have a problem."

How does Covid-19 affect children?

According to the NHS “children can get coronavirus (COVID-19), but they seem to get it less often than adults and it's usually less serious.”

The elderly and adults in general are far more likely to develop serious symptoms.

In rare circumstances children have developed an inflammatory disease similar to Kawasaki Disease, with scientists suggesting it’s a delayed immune response to coronavirus.