President Trump’s bout with coronavirus, and his continued and frequently dishonest downplaying of it, isn’t just a problem for his re-election campaign. It’s also putting Big Tech in an uncomfortable position, on a collision course with the President over what they’ve portrayed as strict rules regarding misinformation about the virus.
Both companies say they may entirely remove any posts about the virus that could result in harm. In August, both Facebook and Twitter removed videos posted by Trump and his campaign of an interview Trump gave to Fox News in which he falsely claimed that children are « almost immune » to the virus. That policy gives the companies less cover if and when they decide not to remove a post by the President containing misinformation about the virus. On the other hand, the removal of his posts is far more likely to prompt Trump’s ire than the small labels the companies now regularly apply to his posts. The stakes for the companies are high — if they leave the posts untouched, they are allowing misinformation about a deadly virus to spread across their platforms. But call out Trump’s misinformation and they risk facing the wrath of his administration and his allies in Congress.
