It’s one small step. Twitter is finally taking action against Donald Trump’s false tweets. For the first time today, the social platform added an exclamation point and link to fact-check one of the president’s tweets about mail-in ballots. It says “Get the facts about mail-in ballots.” That link takes you to a page that says “Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.” This was the tweet that was flagged.
As the Washington Post writes:
Twitter’s actions come on a day when Twitter was facing a barrage of criticism over another set of Trump tweets. Earlier on Tuesday the widower of a former staffer to or Joe Scarborough has asked Twitter chief executive officer Jack Dorsey to delete tweets by President Trump furthering a baseless conspiracy theory about his wife’s death.
We reported on the uproar earlier Tuesday. Those tweets remain on Trump’s account, without any fact checks or flags. Twitter has said it will not take down the Scarborough tweets.
Many have long called for Trump to be suspended from Twitter for violating policies of the site. This is the first action taken. Axios writes:
“Twitter spokesperson Lindsay McCallum said Trump’s tweets “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.”