How does the Twitter fact-check policy work and why was it used against Trump?
Donald Trump has threatened to regulate or shut down social media companies, a day after Twitter Inc for the first time added a warning to some of his tweets prompting readers to fact check the president's claims.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to regulate or shut down social media companies in the same week after Twitter, for the first time added a warning to some of his tweets prompting readers to fact check the president's claims.
Trump, without offering any evidence, reiterated his accusations of political bias by such technology platforms, tweeting: "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."
He added: "Clean up your act, NOW!!!!"
Trump posted tweets about the ballot topic on Tuesday, which had moved Twitter to add a blue exclamation mark alert underneath those tweets to warn his claims were false and had been debunked by fact-checkers.
The shift by the social media network company, which has tightened its policies in recent years amid criticism that its hands-off approach has allowed misinformation to thrive, had prompted Trump to accuse it of interfering in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says that labelling two of President Donald Trump's tweets with fact checks does not make the social media company an "arbiter of truth."
Trump's tweets in question falsely claimed that the governor of California (Democrat Gavin Newsom) was sending out mail-in ballots to "anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there." Twitter labelled them with a message urging users to "Get the facts about mail-in ballots." Twitter's message directly linked to a curated fact-checking page populated with journalists and news article summaries debunking the claim
Twitter reply
"Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions," CEO of the social media platform Jack Dorsey tweeted on Wednesday night.
Dorsey was responding to a firestorm of criticism the company has received from conservatives after Twitter began fact checking Trump, who is arguably one of the platform's most prolific users.
Fact-check
Twitter recently announced the introducing of new labels and warning messages which serve to provide additional context and information on some Tweets containing disputed or misleading information on all matters but with major focus on Covid-19 information and flag up tweets where users may still be confused or misled by the content.
Twitter added that: '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'.