Information Warfare Erupts As Twitter Issues Fact-Check Labels On US President Donald Trump's Tweets

After years of alleged inaction against President Trump's threatening posts on Twitter, the San Francisco company for the first time on May 27 used a fact check label on two of the USA President's tweets.

Refuting the inaccuracies in the President's posts, the social media giant added links to two of his tweets in which he had posted about mail-in ballots falsely claiming that it could cause the upcoming November elections to be rigged.

The links in blue lettering at the bottom of the posts were intended for people to know the truth about the mail-in ballots. Clicking on the links led to a CNN story that claimed the President's claims were unsubstantiated and to a list of bullet points that Twitter had compiled rebutting the inaccuracies.

These labels attached by Twitter calling Trump's tweets as fraudulent caused an uproar in the White House and placed the social media company at loggerheads with the President.

Earlier on May 27 Jack Dorsey, Twitter's chief executive officer (CEO) on Tuesday received a letter from Timothy Klausutis, the husband of Lori Klausutis, a young woman who died in 2001 from complications of an undiagnosed heart condition while working for Joe Scarborough, a Florida congressman at the time. In his letter, Mr. Klausutis had urged Twitter to delete Trump's comments which falsely tried to claim that Joe Scarborough was involved in Ms. Klausutis's death. While apologizing to the concerned party, Twitter decided to not remove the tweet as it did not tamper with any policies.

However, later it put labels on the tweet regarding the ballot system justifying that such a tweet was misleading and could lead to a voter's confusion. This sparked outrage among Trump's followers who had already been harping upon the subject of their voices being censored on social media platforms. Donald Trump set off a spree pf accusations against the company calling them biased against him. In another tweet, he further accused them of interfering with the presidential election adding that they were stifling Free Press.

The Twitter warfare continued wherein the President was seen trying to level charges against the social media handle in varying degrees. "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices," Trump tweeted earlier on May 27. "We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can't let a more sophisticated version of that .... happen again."

In a later tweet, he was seen openly threatening Twitter.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to "strongly regulate" or even shut down social media platforms. Later claiming that the firms had "unchecked power" to censure and edit the views of users, Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at removing some of the legal protections given to social media platforms like Twitter. This move was highly condemned by social media handles including Twitter.

The executive order argued against the legal immunity vested with these social handles to not be held accountable for editing posts or adding a warning label. The executive order also called for the Federal Communications Commission to spell out what type of content blocking will be considered deceptive or inconsistent with a service provider's terms and conditions.

In a recent development, Twitter hid one of President Trump's tweets from his profile, saying it violated rules about glorifying violence.

The post in question was about protests in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd, a black man who was filmed on video saying that he could not breathe as a white police officer used his knee to pin Floyd down. The social media is said to have used its public interest notice" to flag the President's inciting post. However, the post can still be viewed but will be hidden behind a notice.

Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, responded to the criticism leveled against the platform's fact-checking policies saying, "We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally."

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