After Twitter Inc. TWTR inserted a fact check link to two of his tweets, President Donald Trump accused the social media platform of stifling free speech and electoral interference.
What Happened
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted about mail-in ballots claiming they couldn’t be “anything less than substantially fraudulent.” He said that mailboxes would be robbed, forged, printed illegally, and fraudulently signed.
The president then accused California of sending millions of ballots to anyone “living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there.”
Twitter inserted a link to a fact-check warning for both Trump’s tweets. The warning referenced information from AT&T Inc. owned T CNN and Washington Post, a newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN
The president appeared incensed at Twitter, returning to the microblogging platform to thoroughly lambast its adding the warning. “[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....”
Trump warned that he would not allow Twitter to stifle free speech.
Why It Matters
This is the first time ever that a tweet by the president has been tagged with a fact check.
The fact check warning on Trump’s tweets comes after Twitter updated its approach to handling misleading information.
Other social media platforms such as Facebook Inc. FB are also clamping down on misleading information, especially in relation to the ongoing pandemic.
Price Action
Twitter shares traded 1.35% lower at $33.55 in the after-hours session on Tuesday. The shares had closed the regular session 4.29% higher at $34.01.
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