Trump campaign fires back at Facebook removal of Trump post: ‘Flagrant bias’

President Trump’s reelection campaign accused Facebook of displaying “flagrant bias” against the president after the social media platform removed a post from his official page on Wednesday. 

The post that was removed included a video of Trump’s interview on “Fox & Friends” from earlier in the day in which he said young people are “almost immune” to the coronavirus. Facebook said the video was removed because it included “false claims.”

The Trump campaign pushed back on Facebook’s assessment, denying that what the president said was factually wrong. 

“The President was stating a fact that children are less susceptible to the coronavirus,” Trump campaign deputy national press secretary Courtney Parella said in a statement. “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.”

Facebook has previously removed Trump campaign advertisements, but Wednesday is the first time the company has removed a post from the president’s page concerning COVID-19. 

The White House deferred comments about Facebook’s actions to the Trump campaign. 

In a statement, first reported by NBC News, a spokesperson for the social media platform said the video was removed because it “includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation.”

Trump made the comment during the interview as he continued to push for schools to open this fall despite the coronavirus pandemic, including rising cases across much of the U.S. 

Trump has made similar comments in recent days when urging schools to open.

“I do say again, young people are almost immune to this disease. The younger the better,” Trump said last week during a White House briefing with reporters. “They’re stronger, they have a stronger immune system.”

Children can contract COVID-19, but evidence so far suggests they are less likely to experience severe illness or death than adults.