Twitter took an unprecedented step in its social media war with President Trump.
On Wednesday night, the social media giant banned the Trump campaign’s account from tweeting unless it removed a post that included a clip of the president claiming children are “almost immune” to COVID-19. The social media platform said the content “is in violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation.”
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Trump campaign deputy national press secretary Courtney Parella said that the Twitter employee who notified the team of the temporary ban was a former press secretary to California Sen. Kamala Harris, who is rumored to be one of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s top selections for vice president.
“The Twitter employee who explained why our account was suspended is also Kamala Harris’s former press secretary,” Parella said. “Another day, another display of Silicon Valley’s flagrant bias against this President, where the rules are only enforced in one direction. Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth. The President was stating a fact that children are less susceptible to the coronavirus.”
“The employee is a spokesperson who Tweeted out a clarifying statement after there was confusion in the press about what action was taken,” a Twitter spokesman told the Washington Examiner in response. “The account owner would have been informed of the violation through our standard procedures and automated alerts that are sent when a violation occurs.”
Earlier that night, Facebook also targeted a post from Trump in its latest efforts to eliminate “misinformation” about the coronavirus pandemic, which included the same clip. The video showed Trump saying, “Children are almost, and I would almost say definitely, but almost immune from this disease.”
Some studies have suggested that children are less likely to get infected than adults and that when they do get COVID-19, the cases are usually mild and fatalities are rare. There has also been research showing they carry the coronavirus at high levels, however.
