Twitter is now for the first time ever fact-checking all tweets sent in by U.S. President Donald Trump, and encouraging users to check all tweets made for any misleading information so as to curb on fake news.
It came as a surprise to many when Twitter made the bold move prompting most of its users to check for facts in tweets sent by Donald Trump, warning that his claims about mail-in bailouts were false and had been debunked by fact-checkers.
The new regulations are seen as a new step by the social network service to help put a stop to misleading fake news and information that has been a problem on the platform for a while now, which could also become a problem for Trump since it’s his main platform of choice when it comes to delivering unfiltered versions of his thoughts.
The company has been implementing strict guidelines and policies on the platform after several years of complaints issued against it for being less strict when it came to fake accounts, misinformation and abuse on the network.
Donald Trump wasn’t happy with the move Twitter made
Trump’s response to Twitter’s new policies was something any of us wouldn’t be surprised about, as he accused the social network of interfering with free speech and U.S. 2020 presidential elections. The tweet read: “Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!” he said.
Trump, who has more than 80 million followers on Twitter, claimed in tweets earlier in the day that mail-in ballots would be “substantially fraudulent” and result in a “rigged election.” He also singled out the governor of California over the issue, although the state is not the only one to use mail-in ballots.
Hours later, Twitter posted a blue exclamation mark alert underneath those tweets, prompting readers to “get the facts about mail-in ballots” and directing them to a page with information aggregated by Twitter staffers about the claims.
However, Trump instead made the same statements on Facebook which got a lot of shares and feedback, though the social network didn’t take any action against it yet it has strict policies that allow them to remove content that misrepresents methods of voting or voter registration, but didn’t take action.
According to a statement by Facebook, “We believe that people should be able to have a robust debate about the electoral process, which is why we have crafted our policies to focus on misrepresentations that would interfere with the vote,” a Facebook spokesman told Reuters.
Twitter said the application of a fact-checking label to the president’s tweets was an extension of its new “misleading information” policy, introduced earlier this month to combat misinformation about the coronavirus.
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