Twitter labels Trump tweets as “potentially misleading” for the first time

“On Tuesday, Twitter labeled two tweets from President Donald Trump making false statements about mail-in voting as ‘potentially misleading.’ It’s the first time the platform has fact-checked the president,” as The Verge is reporting.

“The label was imposed on two tweets Trump posted Tuesday morning falsely claiming that ‘mail-in ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent’ and would result in ‘a rigged election.’ The tweets focused primarily on California’s efforts to expand mail-in voting due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. On Sunday, the Republican National Committee sued California Governor Gavin Newsom over the state’s moves to expand mail-in voting.

“According to a Twitter spokesperson, the tweets ‘contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.’ When a user sees the tweets from Trump, a link from Twitter is attached to them that says ‘Get the facts about mail-in ballots.’ The link leads to a collection of tweets and news articles debunking the president’s statements.

The rest of the article is here.

Author: jeffpelline

Jeff Pelline is a veteran editor and award-winning journalist - in print and online. He is publisher of Sierra FoodWineArt magazine and its website SierraCulture.com. Jeff covered business and technology for The San Francisco Chronicle for 12 years, and he was a founding editor and Editor of CNET News for eight years, among other positions. Jeff has a bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley and a master's from Northwestern University. His hobbies include sailing, swimming, and trout fishing in the Sierra.

3 thoughts on “Twitter labels Trump tweets as “potentially misleading” for the first time”

  1. His statements are more than merely “potentially misleading false statements.” They are flat-out lies aimed at undermining vote-by-mail initiatives. Like most Republicans since at least 1980, he knows that enlarging the franchise (as in voting by mail) is bad for Republicans. Here Paul Weyrich (cofounder of the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Moral Majority) explains why Republicans don’t want more people to vote:

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