- Twitter posted a “public interest” on Sunday in a tweet President Donald Trump sent earlier in the day in the latest preview of the platform that monitors his tweets.
- Just after 7 p.m. on Saturday, Trump tweeted unconfirmed claims about ballot drop-off boxes being implemented by states to give residents permission for post-in ballots without relying on the postal service.
- “We are posting a public interest message on this Tweet for violating our civil integrity policies to create misleading health requirements that could potentially mislead people from participating in the vote,” Twitter said.
- After Twitter began flagging some of Trump’s tweets in May, he joined other conservatives in calling social media platforms biased against conservatives, and he signed an executive order to regulate Twitter and similar companies.
- Visit the Business Insider website for more stories.
Twitter on Sunday posted a ‘public interest’ in a tweet sent by President Donald Trump earlier in the day claiming without evidence that “Mail Drop Boxes” for voting would lead to voter fraud and carry the risk of coronavirus transmission.
“That’s where Democrats are using Mail Drop Boxes, which are a disaster for voter security,” President Donald Trump tweeted just after 7 p.m. Sunday. “Among other things, they make it possible for a person to vote multiple times.
‘Whoever controls them, will they be placed in Republican or Democratic areas?’ he went on. “They are not sanitizing Covid. A great fraud!”
The president has been a staunch opponent of state efforts to expand e-mail voting to encourage voters to vote without individuals having to vote because of the coronavirus pandemic. To reduce voters’ concerns about postal voting in the midst of the ongoing public crisis for the postal service, states have expanded locations that allow voters to cast their ballots instead of sending them via USPS.
“This Tweet violated the Twitter rules on citizen and election integrity, the warning that now appears about Trump’s tweet readings. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”
The White House declined to comment Saturday.
“We have set up a public interest institute here Tweet for violating our civic integration policies, for creating misleading health requirements that could potentially dissuade people from participating in the vote, “a Twitter spokesman told Business Insider. We took action because the Tweet violates our rules, but kept the Tweet on Twitter because it’s important that the public can still see the Tweet, given its relevance to ongoing matters of public interest. “
While users will be able to share the tweet by using the “Comment Retweet” feature, users will no longer be able to retweet, like, or reply to the tweet, which Twitter said was the default for the posts it posted on the President.
There is not much evidence to suggest that there is an increased risk of voter fraud regarding post-in ballot papers. According to a Reuters report, one in four voters voted by post in the 2016 election. Trump and more than 20 people in his administration than anyone else close to him have voted or attempted to vote by post in the recent election. , Business Insider reported earlier.
In June, Trump’s campaign for reelection filed a lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania to stop the implementation of drop-off locations, arguing that officials ‘sacrificed the sanctity of individuals’ votes on the altar of unmonitored post-in-office vote and have exponentially improved the threat that fraudulent or otherwise unjustified votes will be cast and counted in the upcoming general election, “the Philadelphia Enquirer reported.
In May, Twitter began posting messages about some of Trump’s tweets after years of criticism that the platform did not do enough to combat the president’s misinformation as tweets that otherwise disregard Twitter rules. The president and other Republicans have claimed that companies on social media, such as Twitter, are biased against conservatives.
Days after Twitter began offering sporadic fact-checking of its tweets, Trump signed an executive order authorizing federal regulators to change a statute that gave companies on social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, the broad authority to speak on their platforms. to moderate. Insider previously reported. Experts from the First Amendment have asked Trump’s authority to regulate or shut down social media companies that he disagreed with.
