Twitter on Tuesday for the first time slapped a fact-check label on US President Donald Trump’s tweets.
The social network’s move was made in response to two Trump tweets over the past 24 hours which claimed that mail-in ballots are fraudulent.
Twitter’s label says, “Get the facts about mail-in ballots,” and redirects users to news articles about Trump’s claim.
Twitter spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said, according to The Washington Post, that the tweets “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.”
The label directs users to articles by CNN, The Washington Post and The Hill, along with selections from the articles and a page summarizing the findings of fact-checkers.
Twitter’s action quickly drew backlash from Trump, who wrote, “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.”
“Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!” he added.
The Washington Post noted that Trump posted the same content about mail-in ballots on Facebook but Facebook said it didn’t plan to label or remove the post.
“We believe that people should be able to have a robust debate about the electoral process, which is why we have crafted our policies to focus on misrepresentations that would interfere with the vote,” Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said.