The social media platform Twitter gave a fact-check label to a tweet by the US President Donald Trump for the first time on Wednesday. The warning label put under the tweet and a subsequent tweet by the platform is its new policy on misleading information.
President tweeted about the Mail-in Ballots and said that it would be anything less than substantially fraudulent. In response to the warning label by Twitter, Trump responded by tweeting again, accusing the social media giant of stifling free speech.
A blue exclamation mark is displayed underneath Trump’s tweet, suggesting the visitors and readers “get the facts about Mail-In Ballots.” The link directs the readers to a page on which the American President’s comments are described as “unsubstantiated”. Twitter cites reporting on the issue by The New York Times, CNN, and Washington Post.
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It is then followed by “what you need to know” section, which corrects the claims it says are incorrect. Earlier this month, the social media giant had vowed to curb the misinformation spread on the platform, but it has been slow to take measures against President Trump.
In his tweets, the President accused Twitter of curbing the free speech and warned that he would not allow it under his watch. He then went on to blame the company for interfering in the November Presidential elections.
Brad Parscale, Trump’s Presidential campaign manager, also criticized Twitter and said that partnering with fake news ‘fact checkers’ is a smokescreen to lend social media’s political tactics false credibility. He added that this is the reason why the campaign pulled out most of the campaign advertisements from Twitter last month.
Mail-In Ballots
The recent survey suggests that more than 60 percent of the American voters said they would not be comfortable going outdoors to a polling station to cast their votes during the coronavirus outbreak. Mail-In Ballots are the bulletins that are distributed and returned through the post.
The concerns highlighted in a recent survey have pressurized state authorities to make sure the availability of Mail-In Ballots for all voters to avoid the risk of viral exposure from in-person voting across the country.
However, many states provide facilities of remote voting, but the requirements to qualify to vary greatly. The states in the western part of the country, including Oregon, Washington, and Colorado, conduct their election entirely via Mail-In Ballots.
Meanwhile, other states, including California, provide postal ballots to voters who request it. But the 17 other states the eligibility to qualify for an absentee ballot is strict as voters are to provide a valid reason why they are unable to vote in-person.
The move from the social media giant comes on the heels of its decision of not removing the comment made by President Trump about the death of Lori Klausutis in 2001. He posted several tweets promoting a conspiracy theory that the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough murdered him.
Timothy Klausutis, her widower, appealed to twitter to remove the comment, saying it included horrible lies. But Twitter declined the request to take down the tweet and apologized to Klausutis about the pain caused by President’s tweets.
