Twitter has locked the Trump campaign’s account over a clip containing misinformation about the novel coronavirus, saying the account will be able to resume tweeting only if it deletes the tweet in question.
The clip comes from a “Fox & Friends” interview and features the president claiming children are “almost immune” from the virus. The same excerpt was removed from Facebook earlier Wednesday.
The tweet “is in violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation,” says says Liz Kelley Twitter’s spokesperson . “The account owner will be required to remove the tweet before they can tweet again.”
The move by Twitter comes after several incidents in recent months in which it penalized the president’s personal account. The platform previously flagged a tweet about mail-in voting as containing misleading claims about an election. Another saying looters would be shot during unrest after the death of George Floyd was flagged as promoting violence. A third, featuring an edit of a clip of a Black toddler and a white toddler embracing, was removed for containing “manipulated media” due to the addition of a fictitious CNN chyron.
