This happened yesterday, and it was Trump appearing on Fox News to talk about reopening schools. In it, Trump makes the point that kids are under no particular threat to die or even really get seriously ill from COVID-19. But if you get your news from your Facebook feed you probably didn’t see it.
He says they’re “almost immune,” which scientifically speaking probably isn’t quite true, but practically speaking he’s right.
Schools across the world have reopened. In Asia and Europe the results have been that the virus hasn’t appreciably spread as a result.
And somehow this argument Trump is making is beyond the pale for Facebook?
“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,” a Facebook spokesman told NBC News.
Twitter was even worse. Twitter banned Trump’s campaign account from posting until they removed the link to the video.
“The @TeamTrump Tweet referenced is in violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation,” said a spokesperson. “The account owner will be required to remove the Tweet before they can Tweet again.
Here’s the video, which Gab is hosting as a means of sticking it to Facebook and Twitter. Andrew Torba is the CEO of Gab.
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The timing on this isn’t all that good for Facebook, you know. It was barely a week ago that Mark Zuckerberg and others got called on the carpet by the House Antitrust Committee to talk about their censorship of conservative content on their platforms.
Here was Rep. Jim Jordan giving the chapter-and-verse indictment of Big Tech for its censorship and suppression of conservative thought.
By the way, there is also this, which made no sense…
There’s a hashtag on Facebook, #SaveOurChildren, which is dedicated to advocating against child sex trafficking. For some reason Facebook is censoring that along with videos of Trump talking about opening schools and saying kids don’t get sick from COVID-19. But kiddie porn, which is illegal, doesn’t get censored on Facebook.
Similar examples exist on Twitter.
And these are the oligarchs who control the social media space?
Is anybody else appalled at the hypocrisy and naked cultural aggression here?
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