Twitter forces DNC, journalists to delete criticism of Trump’s coronavirus misinformation

In an appearance on Fox News yesterday, President Donald Trump shared a dangerous piece of misinformation regarding the coronavirus and children.

"If you look at children, children are almost — and I would almost say definitely — but, almost immune from this disease," said the president of the United States.

Trump’s words seem to violate the policy rules of numerous social media platforms when it comes to coronavirus misinformation. And by "seem to," I would almost say definitely.

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However, in this case, Twitter, which has previously labeled Trump's rule-breaking tweets with a label, seemed to go a little further with its action against misinformation... and not in a good way. The company forced journalists and even an official account run by the Democratic Party to delete tweets reporting on or criticizing the president’s words.

Twitter temporarily suspended the DNC rapid response account @DNCWarRoom until it deleted a tweet about Trump’s coronavirus misinformation. It also required journalists from outlets such as Vox and MediaMatters to delete similar tweets about Trump’s COVID-19 falsehoods or face suspension until they do so.

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Yesterday, Twitter forced Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign to delete a tweet containing the same coronavirus misinformation-spreading Fox clip by suspending the @TeamTrump account until it removed the tweet.

In a statement to CNN, Twitter defended its decision to force even accounts that were critical of Trump’s words to delete its tweets. It appears the issue is that sharing of the video, which all the affected accounts did, even to criticize it, is still in violation of Twitter's coronavirus misinformation rules. Users who have tweeted critically about Trump's misinfo without including the clip don't appear to run afoul of Twitter's rules.

“Accounts that shared the identical video may also be required to delete their Tweets, as it's the video itself that violates our COVID misinformation policy,” the company said.

Facebook also took action against a post sharing out a clip of the Fox News appearance, deleting it from Trump’s page.

By the way, children are not immune — almost, definitely, or otherwise — to the coronavirus.