Twitter warning over Tories’ ‘factcheck’ switch
TWITTER warned attempts to mislead users during the General Election will lead to ‘decisive action’, after the Tories were criticised and mocked for re-branding a party account.
The Conservative campaign headquarters press office presented itself as a fact-checking service during the ITV leaders’ debate on Tuesday evening. Renamed ‘factcheckUK’, the verified @CCHQpress account commented on Jeremy Corbyn and retweeted support for Boris Johnson before later changing its name back.
In response, Twitter warned it has rules against misleading the public.
‘Any further attempts to mislead people by editing verified profile information – in a manner seen during the UK election debate – will result in decisive corrective action,’ said a spokeswoman. And the Conservatives soon found themselves facing the scorn of users who created their own parody CCHQ ‘factcheck’ accounts.
Black Mirror writer Charlie Brooker branded his with the slogan ‘fact checking and s***’ and tweeted a reference to dystopian novel 1984.
Royle Family actor Ralf Little was locked out of his account after labelling it the ‘Conservative Press Orifice’. ‘Assume I’ve been suspended,’ he said. ‘Which is fine. But only if the @CCHQPress account is suspended.’
Former Tory minister David Gauke said the move by the Conservatives was ‘a blatant attempt to mislead people’. And watchdog the Electoral
Commission warned voters were entitled to expect ‘transparency’.
But party figures defended it as challenging ‘nonsense’ by Labour.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab said it was clear the account was run by the Conservatives, and no voters ‘give a toss’ about social media activity.
KAY BURLEY’S decision to ‘empty chair’ James Cleverly will not lead to a formal investigation by Ofcom.
The media watchdog received 271 complaints after the Sky News presenter addressed a vacant seat with planned questions for the politician.
Burley claimed the Conservative Party chairman missed a planned appearance on her breakfast show earlier this month, but he insisted he was not booked to appear and had an appointment elsewhere.
Yesterday, an Ofcom spokeswoman said: ‘Having assessed the programme as a whole, we were satisfied that the viewpoint of the Conservatives was given sufficient weight to maintain due impartiality.
‘This included a repeated clip of Mr Cleverly discussing his party’s ambitions for the election campaign.’
After being ‘empty-chaired’, Mr Cleverly said: ‘I’m a pretty decent multi-tasker, but I cannot physically be in two places at the same time.’