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US President, Donald Trump, has accused Twitter of interfering in the country’s upcoming presidential election, after the micro-blogging platform marked his tweets as misleading.
The US president termed the action by Twitter as an assault on free speech and vowed not to tolerate it.
Trump wrote on his Twitter handle, “.@Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post. Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!”
Twitter labelled two of Trump’s tweets “unsubstantiated” and accused him of making false claims, a first for the social network which has long resisted calls to censure the US President over truth-defying posts, AFP reports.
Trump’s tweets contended without evidence that mail-in voting would lead to fraud and a “Rigged Election.”
Under the tweets, Twitter posted a link which read “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” and which took users to a notice pointing out that the claims are “unsubstantiated”, citing reporting by CNN, the Washington Post and other media.
“Trump falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to ‘Rigged Election’,” the notice contended.
“However, fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud.”
Trump aimed the misleading tweets at California, contending falsely that anyone living in the state would be sent ballots when in fact they will only go to registered voters, according to the notice.
Discouraging voting, say by requiring people worried about the coronavirus to risk being in crowded polling stations to cast their ballot, is seen as improving Trump’s chances of re-election.
The tweets violated a recently expanded Twitter policy, according the San Francisco-based company.
“In serving the public conversation, our goal is to make it easy to find credible information on Twitter and to limit the spread of potentially harmful and misleading content,” head of site integrity Yoel Roth and global public policy director Nick Pickles said when the change was announced.
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