Jack Dorsey Defends Twitter’s Fact-Checking of Trump
The Twitter CEO responded to the President’s criticism of fact-checking links being added to his tweets on mail-in voting.
In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to criticism from President Trump after a pair of his tweets were marked with fact-checking links.
President Trump’s original tweets, written on Monday, described the use of mail-in ballots as “fraudulent” and claimed that “The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone […] living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one.”
As of Tuesday evening, the tweets were amended with a link prompting readers to “Get the facts about mail-in ballots”. When clicked, the link redirects to a Twitter “Moments” page correcting the contents of the President’s statement. Among other corrections to the President’s claims about mail-in voting, it specifies that “only registered voters will receive ballots.”
In subsequent tweets, President Trump described the fact-checking link as “stifling FREE SPEECH” and an attempt by Twitter to interfere in the 2020 election. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg also criticised the use of the link, who compared Twitter’s policy to Facebook’s. “I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online,” he said in an interview with Fox News.
Dorsey wrote in response that he was “ultimately accountable” for the action, and cited Twitter’s civic integrity policy as the reason for the tweets’ correction, stating that “the tweets yesterday may mislead people into thinking they don’t need to register to get a ballot”.
“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 wrote.
President Trump has since threatened to “strongly regulate” or close down social media platforms that “totally silence conservatives voices”, and is expected to issue an executive order related to social media companies in the near future, though no details of its contents have yet emerged.
