This week has been interesting because, for the first time, social media giant Twitter fact-checked two of America’s President Donald Trump posts. The platform has been receiving a lot of heat from people who thought Twitter was doing little to stop the spread of fictitious information.
In this case, President Trump tweeted that US’s mail-in ballots in this year’s elections would be fraudulent. The tweets were met by harsh criticism, and Twitter had no option but to tag the posts with a fact-checker.
The tool is under the two tweets, and what it basically does is give users factual information about mail-in ballot, in comparison to what has been posted. Its existence then implies that the targeted tweets could be false.
It is likely we will be seeing this kind of response from Twitter, which has been cited not doing enough to fight fake news. President Trump uses the platform on the daily, and he sends all forms of tweets, from political messages to obvious jabs targeting rivals.
It has also been whispered that Twitter has always been reluctant to deleting false information sent by prominent people. The internet company has previously done away with tweets and accounts that perpetuated any kind of fake news but from small players.
Twitter has a blog that has since been updated with information about how it deals with misleading information. The update was motivated by COVID-19, which keeps replenished with new information and data about symptoms and modes of spread.
The platform introduced ‘new labels and warning’, which we think ‘Fact check’ is part of.
“Depending on the propensity for harm and type of misleading information, warnings may also be applied to a Tweet. These warnings will inform people that the information in the Tweet conflicts with public health experts’ guidance before they view it,” reads the blog.
Furthermore, Twitter’s spokesperson Lindsay McCallum supported the decision to tag Trump’s mail-in ballot tweets. According to her, “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.”
Of course, Trump is not happy and has since threatened some form of retaliation.
Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020
The President says that tech corporations are doing everything ‘to censor in advance of the 2020 election.’
Big Tech is doing everything in their very considerable power to CENSOR in advance of the 2020 Election. If that happens, we no longer have our freedom. I will never let it happen! They tried hard in 2016, and lost. Now they are going absolutely CRAZY. Stay Tuned!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2020
And what is that big action that will follow as the President promises?
Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to follow!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020
The action, whatever it will be, is already being supported by the likes of lawyer and Senator Josh Hawley.
Yep. It’s pretty simple: if @Twitter and @Google and the rest are going to editorialize and censor and act like traditional publishers, they should be treated like traditional publishers and stop receiving the special carve out from the federal government in Section 230 https://t.co/qKPE97zG87
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) May 27, 2020
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has also supported the development, saying that he is accountable for any actions that the corporation takes.
Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.
— jack (@jack) May 28, 2020
How this plays out will be very interesting in the next couple of weeks and months.
