Facebook Deletes Trump Statement on COVID-19, Claiming It’s ‘Fake News’

President Trump is undoubtedly the most social media-forward President in the history of our nation, using Twitter and other digital platforms to skirt the mainstream media’s messaging nearly every day.

This is very likely the “new norm”, so to speak, as Americans find themselves ever more inclined to spend time in front of some screen or another.  Social media is, without a doubt, one of the most important tools in any politician’s bag now, and some of the platforms on which they rely are scrambling to make heads or tails of it all.

In the case of President Donald Trump, both Twitter and Facebook have taken action, often by adding a caveat to posts that they believe may have been misleading.

On Tuesday, however, Facebook went a step further.

Facebook on Tuesday removed a post from President Trump in which he falsely claimed that Covid-19 is less deadly than the seasonal flu.

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed the company removed the post for breaking its rules on Covid-19 misinformation.

President Trump has, by his own admission, played down the threat of Covid-19. Now, while battling his own bout of the disease, he has continued to dishonestly downplay the severity of the virus.

His post on Tuesday falsely equated Covid-19 to the seasonal flu.

The President also posted the same message on Twitter. That post is still live, but Twitter has appended a message to the Tweet stating it violated the company’s rule on spreading misleading information related to Covid-19.

Facebook and Trump have a long and complicated past, with the social media giant first erring on the side of censorship in their blackout of alternative, often conservative, news outlets.  Then, early in the 2020 face, CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a hands-off approach to misinformation being shared within paid political advertising.

This latest move is almost sure to receive a response from the White House.