US President Donald Trump on Tuesday tweeted, “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mailboxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone.....”
This caused Twitter to flag off the tweet with a fact-check warning. Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots "fraudulent and predicted that "mailboxes will be robbed, among other things. Under the tweets, there is now a link reading 'Get the facts about mail-in ballots' that guides users to a Twitter moments page with fact checks and news stories about Trump's unsubstantiated claims.
Trump, who has never faced sanctions by Twitter on his account before, did not take kindly to this.
Trump replied to Twitter by accusing the social media platform of interfering in the 2020 elections. “@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....” he wrote.
He also threatened to shutter down social media.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, on Thursday, reinforced his stance on pointing out "incorrect or disputed information about elections globally", and said that, “We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make,”
Dorsey, after saying that his employees should be left out of the spat, which is expected to get worse, tweeted: “We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.”
He further added that "This does not make us an 'arbiter of truth.' Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions," Dorsey said.
"Per our Civic Integrity policy, the tweets yesterday may mislead people into thinking they don't need to register to get a ballot.
@realDonaldTrump tweet to make this more clear," he went on and tagged the tweets to two of Trump’s tweets.
Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.
— jack (@jack) May 28, 2020
After Twitter flagged his tweets with fact-check tags, Trump said,
“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.” Trump has always been vary of the authenticity and transparency of mail-in ballots and has always tried to undermine them, even as leaders from the Democratic party have pushed for the mail-in voting system during the caucuses and hinted at the need for implementing the mail-in module for the November elections, in case there is a second wave of coronavirus cases or the number of infections does not subside by then.
He said that an increase in mail-in ballots— seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic—will undermine the election.
