President Donald Trump’s official campaign account was briefly suspended by Twitter on Wednesday. According to a statement from Twitter Inc., @teamtrump was violating the social-media’s giant policy on coronavirus misinformation.
President Trump’s personal Twitter handle @realDonaldTrump also retweeted a tweet from @teamtrump depicting a video featuring the POTUS’ interview with Fox News on Wednesday. During the interview, President Trump claimed that children are “virtually immune” from Covid-19:
“They don’t have a problem, they just don’t have a problem,” Trump added, as part of an argument for why schools should reopen. “It doesn’t have an impact on them. I’ve watched some doctors say they’re totally immune.”
According to Twitter’s moderation team, the @teamtrump account was briefly blocked from posting until the respective clip featuring the president of the United States was removed from Twitter. Donald Trump’s personal Twitter account was unaffected by this snafu.
The official campaign account resumed posting earlier on Wednesday, though the aforementioned video-clip, the Fox News interview respectively, have been taken down. According to Nick Pacilio, a spokesman for Twitter:
“The original Tweet from @TeamTrump is in violation of the Twitter Rules on COVID-19 misinformation, and we’ve required removal”
This happened just a few hours after Facebook’s moderation team also censored the clip of Donald Trump’s interview for Fox and Friends, where the POTUS claimed the children to be virtually immune from getting Covid-19.
It’s interesting to observe that both Twitter and Facebook claim to be “free speech” platforms, as opposed to publishers, yet they seem to censor non-politically correct content when it goes against the official narrative, even if it comes from the highest echelons of power. The point being, since when does a company have lording ability over what the President of the USA says?
As in, is the POTUS now expected to get approval from Facebook and Twitter before he issues any statement or gives an interview?