Twitter has done something that I never thought they would actually do. They corrected the misinformation in two of President Trump’s tweets about mail-in ballots. According to The Washington Post, this is the first time Twitter has labeled Trump’s tweets with a fact-check.
CNN, which does not require a subscription in order to read things posted on their website, wrote the following:
On Tuesday, Twitter highlighted two of Trump’s tweets that falsely claimed mail-in ballots would lead to widespread voter fraud, appending a message that the company has introduced to combat misinformation and disputed or unverified claims.
The two tweets posted by President Trump that contained misinformation about mail-in ballots have been marked by Twitter with blue text underneath each tweet. The blue text starts with an exclamation point inside a circle. It says: “Get the facts about mail-in ballots”. Clicking on that link leads to a fact-checked curation of information that debunks the misinformation that was posted by the President.
Personally, I think Twitter made the right decision on adding the fact-check link to those two tweets. Doing so follows Twitter’s policy regarding “rule breaking tweets of public officials”. The policy states that when a tweet has a notice placed on it, it will feature less prominently on Twitter. The tweets will no longer appear in: Safe search, Timeline when switched to Top Tweets, Live event pages, Recommended Tweet push notifications, Notifications tab, or Explore.
If nothing else, Twitter’s decision to post a fact-check label on two of President Trump’s tweets sets a precedent. Twitter can do this again, if need be.