Twitter a land of the not so free
WASHINGTON: Twitter has for the first time called out a tweet sent by US President Donald Trump, warning followers his claims about mail-in ballots are false and have been debunked by fact checkers.
In a tweet responding to the company’s move, Mr Trump accused the company of interfering in the 2020 presidential election. “Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!” he said.
The blue exclamation mark notification put on the president’s tweet prompted readers to “get the facts about mail-in ballots” and directed them to a page with news articles and information about the claims aggregated by Twitter staffers.
Mr Trump, who has more than 80 million followers on Twitter, had claimed in tweets earlier in the day that mail-in ballots would be “substantially fraudulent” and result in a “rigged election”.
“Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud,” said a headline at the top of the page, followed by a “what you need to know” section correcting three false or misleading claims made in the tweets.
Twitter confirmed this was the first time it had applied a fact-checking label to a tweet by the president, in an extension of its new “misleading information” policy introduced to combat misinformation about the coronavirus.
“We always knew that Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to obstruct and interfere with President Trump getting his message through to voters,” said Trump campaign manager
Brad Parscale.
Twitter’s fact-checking notification came hours after the social network declined to take action on tweets Mr Trump sent about the 2001 death of a former congressional staff member, after her widower asked the company to remove them for furthering false claims.
The latest online outrage came as Mr Trump’s rival, Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden slammed his Republican foe as an “an absolute fool“who was “costing people’s lives” for mocking his wearing of a face mask.
“Presidents are supposed to lead, not engage in folly and be falsely masculine,” Mr Biden said.
It was the presumptive Democrat nominee’s first faceto-face interview since he emerged from his basement this week, where he had been sheltering the past two months from the pandemic.
Mr Biden also tried to downplay his most recent race-gaffe, after he was criticised for last week telling a black interviewer that if he was considering supporting Mr Trump “then you ain’t black”.
“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Mr Biden said during the interview Friday.
The comment drew wide criticism, including from powerful black Democrat Jim Clyburn, whose late support in February helped Mr Biden win the vital South Carolina primary. The US slowly starting to re-open from its coronavirus shutdown with the 2020 presidential election still less than six months away.