In A First, Twitter Flags Trump’s Tweets With Fact-Check Warning; He Alleges Curb On Free Speech

In a first, Twitter on Tuesday (26 May) flagged some of United States President Donald Trump’s tweets with a label of fact-check warning, Hindustan Times reported.

The micro blogging site put warning phrase to two of his tweets that claimed that “mail-in ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent” and would result in “a rigged election”.

“There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!,” Trump had written in a thread.

Twitter, later, added labels to the two tweets saying “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” guiding a user to a Twitter “moments” page that had fact-check articles and news reports regarding President Trump’s “unsubstantiated claims”.

However, President Trump on Wednesday hit back at Twitter alleging it of interfering in the US Presidential elections and curbing free speech.

Trump reacted, "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".

A Twitter spokesperson, in a statement to TechCrunch, said that the pair of tweets from the president "contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labelled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots".

"Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!" Trump further reacted on Twitter's action.

In order to limit the spread of potentially harmful and misleading content, starting on 11 March, Twitter introduced new labels and warning messages on some tweets containing disputed or misleading information.

"We will continue to introduce new labels to provide context around different types of unverified claims and rumours as needed," Twitter said in an earlier statement.

(With inputs from IANS)