Trump threatens to “close down social media” after Twitter fact-checks his tweets

Trump threatens to “close down social media” after Twitter fact-checks his tweets

Washington: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to close down social media platforms after Twitter labelled two of his tweets “unsubstantiated” and accused him of making false claims.

“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,” Trump tweeted.

Twitter targeted two tweets the president posted on Tuesday in which he 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” — a first for the social network which has long resisted calls to censure the US president over truth-defying posts.

Twitter on Tuesday for the first time prompted readers to check the facts in tweets sent by U.S. President Donald Trump, warning readers his claims about mail-in ballots were false and had been debunked by fact checkers. Freddie Joyner has more.

Trump pushed back again on Wednesday saying “we can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country. It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots.

“Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!!”

The president also accused social media platforms of interfering in the last election, saying “we saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016.”

“We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that happen again.”

The president has long used Twitter as a platform to spread abuse, conspiracy theories, false information and insults to his 80 million followers.

Before being elected in 2016, he built his political brand by supporting the “birther” lie that Barack Obama, America’s first black president, was not born in the United States and therefore was not eligible to be president.

And he has recently ignited another storm with an attempted character assassination of MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough by spreading the baseless rumor he murdered an aide.

In a first, Twitter adds fact-check warnings to Trump tweets

In a first, Twitter adds fact-check warnings to Trump tweets

Washington: For the first time, Twitter has flagged some of President Donald Trump”s tweets with a fact-check warning.

On Tuesday, Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots “fraudulent” and predicted that “mail boxes will be robbed,” among other things.

Under the tweets, there is now a link reading “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” that guides users to a Twitter “moments” page with fact checks and news stories about Trump”s unsubstantiated claims.

Until now, the president has simply blown past Twitter”s half-hearted attempts to enforce rules intended to promote civility and “healthy” conversation on its most prominent user.

Trump frequently amplifies misinformation, spreads abuse and uses his pulpit to personally attack private citizens and public figures alike — all forbidden under Twitter”s official rules.

In a statement, Twitter said Trump”s vote-by-mail tweets “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labelled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.”

Trump has never previously faced Twitter sanctions on his account. The husband of a woman who died by accident two decades ago in an office of then-GOP Rep. Joe Scarborough recently demanded that Twitter remove the president”s baseless tweets suggesting that Scarborough, now a fierce Trump critic, killed her.

Twitter issued a statement expressing its regret to the husband but so far has taken no action on those tweets.

Over the weekend, the president issued several tweets calling into question the legality of mail-in-ballots. The storm of tweets followed Facebook and Twitter posts from Trump last week that wrongly claimed Michigan”s secretary of state mailed ballots to 7.7 million registered voters. Trump later deleted the tweet and posted an edited version that still threatened to hold up federal funds.

Twitter policy forbids sharing “false or misleading information intended to intimidate or dissuade people from participating in an election or other civic process.” While it has previously flagged tweets conveying misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, it has never before put warnings on tweets for any other reason.

Trump replied on Twitter, accusing the platform of “interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election” and insisting that “as president, I will not allow this to happen.”

His 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said Twitter”s “clear political bias” had led the campaign to pull “all our advertising from Twitter months ago.” Twitter has banned all political advertising since last November.

Trump”s Scarborough tweets offer another example of the president using Twitter to spread misinformation — in this case, about an accidental death that Trump persists in linking to the co-host of MSNBC”s “Morning Joe” show.

“My request is simple: Please delete these tweets,” Timothy J. Klausutis wrote to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey last week.

The body of Lori Kaye Klausutis, 28, was found in Scarborough”s Fort Walton Beach, Florida, congressional office on July 20, 2001. Trump has repeatedly tried to implicate Scarborough in the death even though Scarborough was in Washington, not Florida, at the time.

There is no mystery to the death of Lori Klausutis. Medical officials ruled that the aide, who had a heart condition and told friends hours earlier that she wasn”t feeling well, had fainted and hit her head. Foul play was not suspected.

Klausutis wrote in his letter that he has struggled to move on with his life due to the ongoing “bile and misinformation” spread about his wife on the platform, most recently by Trump. His wife continues to be the subject of conspiracy theories 20 years after her death.

Klausutis called his wife”s death “the single most painful thing that I have ever had to deal with” and said he feels a marital obligation to protect her memory amid “a constant barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, innuendo and conspiracy theories since the day she died.”

Trump”s tweets violate Twitter”s community rules and terms of service, he said. “An ordinary user like me would be banished,” he wrote.

At Tuesday”s White House briefing, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany repeatedly refused to say why Trump was pressing the unfounded allegations or whether he would stop tweeting about them. Instead, she focused on remarks that Scarborough made about the case that she said were inappropriate and flippant.

Dorsey did not reply directly to Klausutis” letter and has not taken any action on the president”s tweets. In a statement, Twitter said it was “deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family.” Scarborough has urged the president to stop his baseless attacks.

Twitter to label tweets containing harmful, misleading content on COVID-19

Twitter to label tweets containing harmful, misleading content on COVID-19

New Delhi: Twitter on Monday said it will label tweets that contain “potentially harmful, misleading information” related to COVID-19, and provide additional context to curb the spread of fake news around the pandemic that has claimed thousands of lives globally.

Like other digital platforms, including Google and Facebook, Twitter is also undertaking these measures to ensure that people have access to information from trusted health experts and organizations like World Health Organization at a time when nations across the world are combating the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this year, Twitter had introduced a new label for tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media that aims to mislead people and had said it would take steps including removal of tweets if such content has the potential to harm public safety.

The crackdown on such content comes amid widespread concerns globally over altered, forged content on social media, including deep-fake videos, and its catastrophic implications.

Twitter, in a blog post on Monday, said, “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”.

“Starting today, we’re introducing new labels and warning messages that will provide additional context and information on some tweets containing disputed or misleading information related to COVID-19,” it said, adding that this will also apply to tweets sent before May 11.

Twitter said that it will take action based on three broad categories — misleading information, disputed claims, and unverified claims.

Tweets containing misleading information will either be removed or contain a label with links to trusted information sources, depending on the propensity for harm.

Tweets featuring disputed claims will either carry a label or warning depending on the severity of content. No action will be taken for tweets containing unverified claims, Twitter said.

The company said these labels will link to a Twitter-curated page or external trusted source containing additional information on the claims made within the tweet.

These warnings, it said, will inform people that the information in the tweet is in contradiction to public health experts’ guidance before a user views the content.

“However, embedded tweets and tweets viewed by people not logged into Twitter may still appear without a label,” the company said.

“Our teams are using and improving on internal systems to proactively monitor content related to COVID-19. These systems help ensure we’re not amplifying tweets with these warnings or labels and detecting the high-visibility content quickly,” Twitter said.

It added that the microblogging platform will also continue to rely on partners to identify content that is likely to result in offline harm.

“Given the dynamic situation, we will prioritize review and labeling of content that could lead to increased exposure or transmission. We’ll learn a lot as we use these new labels, and are open to adjusting as we explore labeling different types of misleading information,” it noted.