Facebook deletes Trump post falsely claiming flu more deadly than Covid

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Facebook has removed a post by Donald Trump in which he falsely stated that Covid-19 is less dangerous than the flu.

The long post broke Facebook’s rules on coronavirus misinformation, the company said.

The same post remains live on Twitter, though it has been placed behind a warning indicating that it could be dangerous. Users have to click on a link to confirm they want to view the tweet before they are able to read the text.

“This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19," the warning reads. "However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”

In the post, Mr Trump had suggested that the flu could be more lethal than covid, and appeared to suggest that further lockdowns would be mistaken as a result.

While the flu continues to prove fatal in large numbers, covid-19 has a considerably larger fatality rate than flu. Mr Trump also included false claims suggesting that the death rate from the flu is “sometimes over 100,000” – but the last time that many Americans died as a result of influenza was in 1968, during a major pandemic.

“Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu," he wrote. "Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!”

Mr Trump’s post had drawn considerable criticism from experts, including doctors. A paper published in May, in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, said that such comparisons were mistaken and that they were being misleadingly used to “minimise the effects of the underlying pandemic”.

Both Twitter and Facebook have struggled to deal with both coronavirus misinformation and potentially misleading or inflammatory posts by Donald Trump. Each has rolled out new policies in an attempt to deal with both, though they have continued to receive criticism.

Attempts by both social networks to crack down on infringing posts by the president have led to a continuing standoff between Twitter, Facebook and Donald Trump. The president has repeatedly threatened to introduce new regulations that would make it harder for the companies to operate, often in the wake of fresh controversies.

Twitter has repeatedly argued that Mr Trump’s posts will sometimes be exempted from otherwise stringent policies, both on misinformation and other issues, as a result of his newsworthiness.

The company did remove one of Mr Trump’s tweets on Monday, and replaced it with a message indicating that it had been deleted for violating Twitter’s rules. That appeared to be a result of the president  including the email address of a New York Post columnist whose article he had shared.