Trump Rages “Repeal Section 230” After Facebook, Twitter Censorship

Update (1220ET): It appears the social media gagging has triggered Trump, who has rage-tweeted: REPEAL SECTION 230!

REPEAL SECTION 230!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020

As a reminder, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 provides immunity to online platforms from civil liability based on third-party content and/or for the removal of content in certain circumstances (i.e. undermining free speech).

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Having angered the blue-check-mark gods of social media by daring to recover from COVID and removing his mask while socially-distanced from everyone on the White House veranda, President Trump tweeted (and posted on Facebook) the following:

“Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. 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!!!“

Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. 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!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020

It appears that last phrase upset The Ministry of Truth as Facebook has now removed the post and Twitter flagged it for “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19.”

There’s just one thing. If you follow the science and the data from CDC… Trump is right…

Here’s the Seasonal Flu mortality data from CDC...

Here’s the COVID mortality data from CDC…

And while the cohorts are not perfectly orthogonal, due to data sourcing issues above, Trump is right that for certain groups, seasonal flu is more deadly than COVID-19…

Of course, the caveat is that we perhaps do not have the full count of the COVID-19 cycle’s impact yet.