Twitter adds label to Trump’s misleading tweets about mail-in ballots

Twitter announced Tuesday that it had added a label to President Donald Trump’s tweets that contained “possibly misleading information about voting processes”. This is a rare move that shows that the social media company is taking a harder stance on misinformation.

It is the first time that Twitter is displaying a label on Trump’s tweets.

On Tuesday, Trump tweeted: “There is NO POSSIBILITY (ZERO!) That mail-in-ballots will be anything but fraudulent,” a statement exposed by fact-checkers and news organizations. He continues his comments in another tweet and explains that it will be a “manipulated choice”.

Under both tweets, you’ll see a label that says, “Get information about mail-in ballots.” Clicking the warning will redirect users to a page that means that Fact checker There is no evidence that postal ballot papers are related to election fraud. Trump also incorrectly states in the tweets that California will send postal ballots to “anyone who lives in the state, whoever they are or how they got there” if only registered voters receive ballot papers. States such as Oregon, Utah and Washington have long held elections by mail only, while states like Nebraska allow any voter to request a ballot and vote by post without having to provide a reason.

A Twitter spokeswoman said in a statement that the decision was in line with the company’s approach to misinformation on its website. This includes adding warnings and labels depending on the likelihood and severity of the damage that a tweet could cause.

Twitter’s actions against Trump’s tweets are also likely to increase tensions between the company and conservative users who claim the social network is suppressing their language. Twitter has repeatedly denied these allegations. Earlier this month, Trump tweeted that the “radical left” has control over Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google and said its administration is working on a solution.

In two tweets, Trump accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

“Twitter completely stifles the FREE SPEECH, and I, as president, will not allow that!”

See more

…. Twitter completely suppresses FREE SPEECH and I, as President, will not allow it!

– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020

Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, has also reported on Twitter for adding a label to the president’s tweets. “We always knew that Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to prevent President Trump from delivering his message to voters. The partnership with the biased fake news media” Fact Checkers “is just a smoke protection device that Twitter uses to try to get credit forgive their obvious political tactics for some false credibility, “Parscale said in one statement. He added that the Trump campaign pulled months ago all advertising from Twitter for many reasons, including “their clear political bias”. Twitter prohibited political advertisements in 2019.

The Brennan Center for Justice An analysis says, “While postal ballot papers are more susceptible to fraud than personal voting, an American is more likely to be struck by lightning than postal ballot fraud.” According to an organization that verifies the facts, Trump also voted in the US election Snopes.

Twitter’s move is in contrast to Facebook’s use of political language. Facebook does not send politicians’ posts and ads to its third-party fact-checkers. Trump published the same comments on mail-in ballots on Facebook in a post that received 169,000 responses and was shared more than 17,000 times.

“We believe that people should be able to have a solid debate on the electoral process, so we have designed our policies to focus on misrepresentations that would affect voting,” said a Facebook spokesman in a statement.

The move from Twitter takes place on the same day that the company came under fire because it had not removed any tweets from Trump that incorrectly suggest that Joe Scarborough, a former US Congressman, may have killed employee Lori Klausutis in 2001. Klausutis died when she was 28 years old after suffering from an abnormal heart rhythm, fell and pounded her head on a desk Politifact. Timothy Klausutis, Lori’s husband, wrote a letter Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, asked the company on May 21 to get Trump’s tweets, but the social network said it didn’t break its rules. Twitter has also left Trump’s tweets for public interest in the past.

It’s unclear how well Twitter’s fact-checking labels, which the company launched on May 11, work. Twitter uses automated technology to add misleading tweets about the corona virus. CNET Twitter has made numerous mistakes, including tagging tweets with news articles and denouncing the conspiracy theory that 5G causes the corona virus.

Both Trump’s tweets via mail-in ballot papers were retweeted more than 37,600 times, and together they received around 131,800 likes on Tuesday afternoon. Users also need to click the label to learn why the company labeled it.

There is also no way for users to appeal Twitter’s decision to add a label to their tweet. Users are also not notified if their tweets are flagged for sharing misleading or controversial information.

MIT researchers have also found that labeling false messages can cause users to believe stories that have not been labeled, even if they contain misinformation in the so-called “implicit truth effect”.

Twitter didn’t immediately have data on how many users clicked the label to learn more about mail-in ballots. A company spokeswoman said Trump’s tweets were the only ones so far characterized by their election integrity policies.