Federalist publisher Ben Domenech highlighted the dangers of social media companies censoring President Trump’s comments about kids being “almost immune” to Covid-19 on “Media Buzz” on Sunday, slamming Democratic strategist Joe Trippi for appearing to suggest Facebook and Twitter were right to take down clips of the president’s remarks.
“The most concerning part of [this issue] is the aspect of Facebook and Twitter, major media outlets — we do have to think of them as media entities — taking down clips of the presidential interview,” Domenech said. “The people deserve to be able to hear what their president has to say…It is extremely troubling to me that any kind of entity, especially one with the kind of power Facebook and Twitter have, would eliminate that type of interview from the public eye as if it’s something that needs to be shut down or eliminated from the conversation.”
.@BDomenech says "extremely troubling" that Facebook/Twitter deleted Trump's student virus comments @KSoltisAnderson said should be a "higher bar" for censoring @JoeTrippi says such misinformation can be damaging #Mediabuzz https://t.co/Bwje7aBisr
— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) August 9, 2020
“I think it is important for Facebook and Twitter and these social media — when you start to use things like ‘children are immune’ and that starts to move, there’s a lot of damage that can be done from making that argument,” Trippi responded.
“It’s problematic that that happened,” he admitted of social media companies’ decision to take down Trump’s comments. “But there is a real question there when you have that kind of information flowing from the president of the United States.”
“Are you saying this is a good thing they took down what the president of the United States was saying?” Domenech asked.
“That’s not what I was saying. I was saying that I think it’s a good thing for this show to talk about, to have shows like this that talk about that because I think it is — there’s a big — there’s danger on both sides of what you’re saying and what the president said,” Trippi insisted.
In an Oval Office interview with Domenech in June, President Trump said he expects to be banned by Twitter before Election Day.
Watch Domenech and Trippi’s conversation here:
