3 years ago261Twitter this week in a note added to one of President Trump’s misleading tweets encouraged readers to “get the facts.”
It’s about time. Trump regularly uses Twitter to promote falsehoods.
The move follows the company’s decision last year to stop accepting political ads because it could not responsibly police them, and it’s announcement this month that it would prohibit postings “for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes.”
It might be a sign that the social media company is finally taking seriously its responsibility to filter out, or at least flag, lies and disinformation.
Predictably, Trump took to — what else — Twitter to denounce the move to hold him accountable for his lies — and to threaten those who question his words.
He claimed Twitter was attempting to silence “conservatives voices” and “stifling FREE SPEECH.” “We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen,” Trump tweeted.
No, Mr. President, this isn’t about free speech. This is about countering the malicious spread of deceit — whether it’s propagated by a foreign country to sow division in our nation or by our own elected leaders, liberal or conservative.
In this case, Trump falsely claimed in his tweet that mail-in ballots are fraudulent. To which Twitter added a note urging readers to “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” with a hyperlink to a string of stories on the inaccuracy of the president’s assertions about voting from home.
It was a relatively tempered step. Twitter didn’t silence Trump by removing the post. Instead, it provided facts to accompany the president’s falsehoods.
Yet, it was the first time Twitter had fact-checked Trump. Let’s hope it’s not the last.
By its actions Tuesday, Twitter showed some backbone for holding the president accountable, while its leading competitor, Facebook, abdicates responsibility in favor of profits. The contrast between the two companies could not be starker.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, has recognized that his company shouldn’t accept political ads if it’s unable to monitor them. In contrast, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has refused to moderate politicians’ comments on his site or fact-check their political ads.
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The Twitter action on Trump’s mail-ballot claims was a start. The next immediate test is what the company plans to do about the president’s baseless tweets accusing MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of a debunked murder plot.
Thus far, the best the company has done is apologize to the widower of the woman who died in 2001. But the president’s posts remain, and without fact-checks. That’s not good enough.
Twitter — and Facebook — must stop blindly enabling the president’s reckless claims and accusations.
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