Social media platforms Facebook and Twitter removed a post by US President Donald Trump for spreading misinformation about the novel coronavirus. This is the first time that Facebook has removed a post by Trump.
The post was a video clip of a Trump interview on Fox News, uploaded on Wednesday, in which the US President claims that children are "almost immune" to COVID-19. The post was removed for violating Facebook and Twitter policies against spreading misinformation about the virus.
"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," said a statement by Facebook policy spokesperson Andy Stone.
In the past Facebook has fallen short of removing posts by Trump, choosing to label them instead. This is the first time the social media giant has opted to censor the president by removing the post entirely.
In June this year, Facebook had removed ads that the Trump campaign posted featuring a symbol Nazis used to classify political prisoners during World War II.