Trump claimed in messages on Twitter and Facebook early Sunday morning that e-mail boxes for voting “were not co-sanitized,” as well as a “disaster for voter safety.”
Now accompanied on the tweet is the full following security message: “This Tweet has violated the Twitter rules on civic and electoral integrity. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”
Trump’s tweet saying that mailboxes are “not covid sanitized” surprised scientists, who note that people are not likely to catch the coronavirus from touching such a box. People can wash their hands or use hand sanitizers to touch objects, including post dropboxes, noted Erin Bromage, an associate professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and a CNN contributor.
“You can completely minimize the risk of infection by sanitizing your hands after you sink into your mood,” Bromage told CNN.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that the main way Covid-19 spreads is from person to person and that while there is a possibility of infection from someone who touches a surface and then their mouth, nose or potentially their eyes, this is not the main way the virus spreads.
The greater risk of transmission occurs when people are crowded inside spaces. “While there is a theoretical possibility of viral transmission from a dropper box, in reality the chances of this occurring and leading to an infection are low,” Bromage said.
Although the exact same message was posted on the president’s Facebook account, the tech giant had not taken any specific action on the post on Sunday afternoon.
CNN reached out to Facebook for comment.
Although Twitter labeled the president’s tweet, it said the tweet would remain on its platform “given its relevance to ongoing public conversation.”
Twitter began noticing Trump’s tweets earlier this summer.
In May, Twitter said Trump’s threat that “looting” would lead to “shootings” amid protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police broke the platform’s rules on glorious violence.
However, Facebook has taken some action against Trump since. Earlier this month, the company removed a video from Trump’s page in which he falsely claimed that children were “almost immune” to Covid-19.
.
