Twitter added on Tuesday a “check the facts” mention to two tweets from Donald Trump who claimed that postal voting was necessarily “fraudulent”, a first when social networks are often accused of laxity in their treatment of comments made by leaders. The President reacted and accused Twitter of “interfering” in the presidential election.
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“These tweets contain potentially misleading information about the voting process and have been reported to provide additional context for the postal vote. This decision was taken in line with the approach we presented earlier this month, “said a spokesperson for the platform.
Two weeks ago, Twitter strengthened its rules to combat misinformation about the pandemic, by expanding the types of messages that can be flagged to users as potentially “misleading” or “controversial”.
This is the first time that Twitter has applied its rules to the President.
“There is NO (ZERO!) AVERAGE for postal voting to be anything but substantially fraudulent,” the US president tweeted.
“The governor of California is sending ballots to millions of people. Everyone who lives in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will receive them. Then professionals will tell them, to the many people who have never even thought of voting before, how and for whom to vote. It will be a rigged election, ”he continued.
Beneath these two tweets is now the statement “Get the Facts on Mail Voting”, which refers to a summary of the facts and articles published in the American press to correct the truth (for example the fact that California does sends newsletters only to registered voters and not to all residents of the state).
Trump reacts
“Twitter is interfering in the 2020 presidential election,” said the White House tenant on his favorite social network. “Twitter is completely restricting freedom of expression and as president I will not let them do it! He threatened.
Networks are regularly criticized for applying double standards in their fight against disinformation.
Facebook, in particular, made the controversial decision not to subject fact-checking by political figures to third party fact-checking.
Twitter, for its part, has solved part of the problem by banning political advertisements.
But that doesn’t stop Donald Trump from continuing to tweet a great deal about the subjects, often peremptorily and contestedly.
Depending on the danger potential of the messages and the type of problems they raise (unverified, disputed or misleading information), the moderators of Twitter can respond with warnings or warnings, or even go as far as withdrawing from the worst case (misleading and dangerous information).
Misinformation about democratic elections (false dates or false information on how to vote) has been considered particularly crucial by Facebook and other platforms since attempts to manipulate the US presidential election and the Brexit referendum in 2016.
The wave of disinformation linked to the coronavirus has also prompted networks to take more drastic measures.
