Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Twitter tags Trump tweet with fact-checking warning


A post by US President Donald Trump has been given a fact-check label by Twitter for the first time.

President Trump tweeted: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent."

Twitter put a warning label under the post and a subsequent tweet under its new policy on misleading information.

Mr Trump responded by tweeting again, saying the social media giant "is completely stifling free speech".

"And I, as president, will not allow it to happen!" he said, accusing Twitter of interfering in the 2020 presidential election in the US.

Twitter's notification displays a blue exclamation mark underneath the tweets, suggesting readers "get the facts about mail-in ballots".

Mr Trump's presidential campaign manager Brad Parscale criticised the move by the social media company.

"Partnering with biased fake news 'fact checkers' is a smoke screen to lend Twitter's obvious political tactics false credibility. There are many reasons we pulled all our advertising from Twitter months ago, and clear political bias is one of them," Mr Parscale tweeted.

What is Twitter saying about Trump's posts?

This is followed by a "what you need to know" section where Twitter corrects what it says are false claims by the US president.

The social media company had pledged to increase the warning labels under false or misleading information on its site - but it has been slow to take steps against the US president.

Twitter updated its policies on warning labels early this month.

Twitter refuses to remove 'horrifying lies'

The move comes on the heels of Twitter's decision not to remove comment President Trump made about the death of Lori Klausutis in 2001.

The president has tweeted several messages promoting a conspiracy theory that Ms Klausutis was murdered by MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.

Her widower Timothy Klausutis asked Twitter to remove the post, saying it included "horrifying lies".

The company declined to take down those tweets but told Mr Klausutis it was "deeply sorry" about the pain caused by the president's statements.


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