In a first, Twitter labeled two tweets from President Donald Trump as “potentially misleading” and included a fact-checking link in his tweet.
In a two-part tweet on Tuesday morning, Trump had said, “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!” he continued.
Trump’s tweets about voter fraud on May 26, 2020 were flagged by Twitter as “potentially misleading” for the first time. (Donald J. Trump/Twitter)
Twitter’s fact-checking label includes a disclaimer saying, “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” and links to a page titled “Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.”
There, Twitter goes on to state that Trump’s claims about mail-in ballots enabling a “rigged election” are false and cannot be supported by evidence.
Twitter goes on to include tweets from reporters with verified accounts to support its claims that Trump is wrong.
Twitter spokesperson Katie Rosborough told CNN Business that Trump’s tweets “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots. This decision is in line with the approach we shared earlier this month.”
Trump slammed Twitter on Tuesday evening, accusing them of interfering with the presidential election.
“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,” Trump said.
….Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
“Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!” he added.
Trump also took a shot at social media platforms on Wednesday morning and threatened to shut them down.
“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. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that happen again. Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country,” he said.
….happen again. Just like 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!!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020
“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!!!!”
Trump had been a vocal critic of states considering the widespread use of mail-in ballots due to the potential for fraud.
The Heritage Foundation compiled an Election Fraud Database in which it uncovered 1,285 voter fraud cases across the U.S., of which 1,110 resulted in criminal convictions, though it’s not immediately clear how many of those cases involved mail-in ballots.
