Facebook and Instagram have taken down a live broadcast from Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro in which he claimed that people in the U.K. who had two COVID-19 vaccine doses are developing AIDS faster than planned.
In an emailed statement to The Associated Press, Facebook's press office confirmed that the post was removed Sunday night because it violated Facebook's policy on COVID-19 vaccines.
"Our policies don't allow claims that COVID-19 vaccines kill or seriously harm people," the statement read.
The company did not respond to questions from the Associated Press about why it took three days for the much-maligned video to be removed, or whether language barriers played a part because Bolsonaro was speaking in Portuguese.
Bolsonaro's posts have already been taken from Facebook, which pulled down the comments late Sunday or early Monday.
Last year, Facebook and Instagram took down posts by the far-right leader that contradicted COVID-19 community guidelines, including one video in which he claimed that the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine was healing COVID-19 all over the world.
The drug has been found to be ineffective in treating COVID-19 after extensive testing.
A few months later, Facebook banned dozens of accounts for "coordinated inauthentic behavior," including ones used by Bolsonaro's employees and two of his lawmaker sons.
In response to an AFP fact-checking team, the British government denied any such "reports."
According to the Brazilian Society of Infectious Disease Specialists, there is no indication of a link between COVID-19 vaccines and AIDS.
The president has stated that he will not get inoculated against COVID-19 and has previously joked that the vaccination could "turn you into an alligator."
The claim was one of the most strange concerning coronavirus vaccines that the president has made so far, despite the fact that he got the virus last year and is still unvaccinated. He spent months spreading misinformation regarding vaccines, particularly the Sinovac vaccine.
He also warned Brazilians that anyone experiencing negative effects would have no legal recourse against Pfizer, which he joked could include women growing beards.
Bolsonaro has 14.6 million Facebook followers and nearly 19 million Instagram followers. His election triumph in 2018 was aided by social media platforms, especially the Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp.
He will run for reelection.
