US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order shortly regarding social media companies, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
The announcement comes a day after Twitter attached a warning to some of Trump’s tweets, prompting readers to fact-check the president’s claims.
The social network’s move was made in response to two Trump tweets 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 that the tweets “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.”
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.
On Wednesday, Trump threatened to shut down social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook in response to Twitter’s move.
"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. 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 tweeted.