Twitter just fact-checked Donald Trump
Donald Trump lied today on Twitter. And, unlike every other day, Twitter finally called him out on it.
In a series of Tuesday morning tweets, the president claimed — falsely — that providing mail-in ballots to the residents of California would automatically result in a "Rigged Election." In response, Twitter appended each of the tweets in question with a note imploring readers to "Get the facts about mail-in ballots."
When clicked, the links take readers to a series of articles explaining the various ways in which Trump's tweets are misleading. This appears to be the first time Twitter has, in effect, fact checked the president — let alone stuck a big "this is bullshit" sticker on one of his tweets.
"These Tweets (here and here) contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots," a Twitter spokesperson told Mashable over email. "This decision is in line with the approach we shared earlier this month."
If this is the new norm, expect many of Trump's future posts on Twitter to come with various warning labels. It seems that, unlike Facebook, Twitter has finally had enough.
UPDATE: May 26, 2020, 5:06 p.m. PDT: The president responded, poorly, Tuesday afternoon to being fact checked by Twitter.
".@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....," wrote Trump. "....Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!"
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It is unclear what, exactly, he means.
We reached out to Twitter for comment on Trump's response, and will update this if we hear back.
Topics X/Twitter Donald Trump
