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Twitter Labels a Few False Trump Tweets as False. Meltdown Ensues.

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Twitter seeming spitting out tweets while making a strange face and hand gesture

Photo: Chriss Keane/Reuters. Twitter spittle: me.

 

Earlier this week, Donald Trump insinuating that an anchor critical of Trump was actually a murderer. The false claim revolved around Lori Klausutis, who died 19 years ago of a blood clot. Trump brought up a conspiracy theory stating that her then boss, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, was her murderer. Scarborough was proven innocent almost two decades ago, and even Timothy Klausutis, husband of the supposed murder victim, asked Twitter to remove Trump’s tweets. Twitter refused to take action.

However, after apologizing to the widower, Twitter did state that they’d do better to flag false tweets in the future. Last night, Twitter put that into effect. They labeled a number of tweets made by President Trump as misleading. Trump’s tweets, for the record, were demonstrably false. Calling them only “misleading” instead of an outright lie was a great kindness.

Naturally, Donald Trump threw a temper tantrum anyway. That temper tantrum may culminate in an executive order tomorrow.

Welcome to politics in 2020 folks.

Mail-In Ballots

Here’s the fact: mail-in ballots have not been used fraudulently. In fact, voter fraud is so rare, it’s virtually a myth. The right’s war against voting rights has little to do with voter fraud and everything to do with controlling who votes. Republicans know, for example, that Democrats are less likely to have photo identification than Republicans. They knew that, specifically, people of color, young people, and women were less likely to have photo IDs. Therefore, they pushed for voter ID laws. Evidence shows that where mail-in ballots are more common, more people vote. However, corresponding evidence also shows that, when more people vote, Democrats win. Furthermore, Republican and Fox news messaging about the severity of COVID-19 has lead many Republicans to take to the streets. They’ll be more likely to vote in person than Democrats come November.

Because of this, Republicans are fighting tooth and nail against mail-in ballots. It has nothing to do with fraud, and everything to do with who votes. If they can keep people from voting, they might have a chance in 2020.

Trump’s Misleading Tweets

It would be easier to label all of Trump’s tweets as misleading and find those with an ounce of truth later. Still, Twitter is saving itself the effort of backdating their fact checking. For now. Instead, they’ve labeled new tweets from the president as misleading. These tweets had to do with mail-in ballots. They claim that mail-in ballots are fraudulent. However, there’s no evidence of this, or as Trump might say, if he was honest, “NO PROOF, ZERO!”

Trump's misleading tweets claim that ballots are fraudulent. There is no evidence of this. Transcript: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes 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..... ....living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!"

If a user clicks on the “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” warning, they’re sent to a Twitter page where Twitter has a fact check and other news stories. The bullet-pointed fact check is below.

– Trump falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to “a Rigged Election.” However, fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud.

– Trump falsely claimed that California will send mail-in ballots to “anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there.” In fact, only registered voters will receive ballots.

– Five states already vote entirely by mail and all states offer some form of mail-in absentee voting, according to NBC News.

– From Twitter’s fact check on Donald Trump

That’s all Twitter did. They provided the facts of the issue to counter Trump’s misleading claims. No attacks against Trump. No targeted or snarky remarks. Just facts about mail-in ballots. Meanwhile, Trump’s using their platform to spread fear and anti-democracy sentiments. Surely Twitter has the right to add an addendum that his statements are false. To protect democracy, I believe they have a duty to do so. Twitter thought so. That’s why they began flagging misinformation about voting in January. Trump’s not even violating a new policy, this was one put in place to defend our democracy against misinformation and voter disenfranchisement campaigns months ago. Twitter had the foresight to know it would be necessary.

Unsurprisingly, those against democracy tend to disagree with Twitter’s actions.

Trump’s Hissy Fit

Trump, as usual, had a meltdown. It’s interesting. When it came to the NFL, he was in favor of the company censoring free speech when it was about Black Lives Matter. But now he’s against private businesses deciding their own content guidelines? If only there was some pattern we could see here!

Trump took to Twitter in a series of tweets, interrupted by other topics, including his conspiracy theory that Joe Scarborough can cause people to have blood clots, and his “Obamagate” conspiracy theory, which he has yet to explain.

The path of tweets, anti-democracy sentiment, and strange choice of all caps suggest a leader who has completely lost his mind.

Where Crazy Goes, Crazy Follows…

Trump’s army of followers has focused on one Twitter employee after Kellyanne Conway, longtime Trump supporter and counselor to the president, ousted him as the person who made the decision. That, in itself, needs a fact check. Twitter says a committee made the decision to do fact checking, not an individual. Still, that didn’t matter to Trump’s supporters, who care not for facts, but for their feelings about Trump and those alone. They’ve begun harassing the person Conway singled out.

When Trump throws a temper tantrum, his followers, well, follow.

Trump’s Executive Order

Donald Trump has threatened executive orders before, which he hasn’t followed through on. For example, towards the beginning of his presidency, there seemed to be two scares where Trump was going to roll back LGBTQ rights. He has attacked LGBTQ rights and undermined hard-won rights already, but has not issued his anti-LGBTQ executive order. Yet. Pride month is next month, though he’s never acknowledged it, so perhaps he’s saving a big surprise for us then.

Tonight, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who previously swore to never lie (she has) announced that Trump would sign an executive order tomorrow “pertaining to social media.” She answered no followup questions, and gave no further details.

Will Trump take a stand against the social media platforms that have allowed his hate speech, lies, and harassment, biting the very hand that feeds him? I doubt it. Trump wouldn’t be president without Facebook and Twitter, and he knows it. But he’ll throw a huge tantrum, hoping to get his way. Hopefully, they’re finally ready to stand up to the blubbering bully.

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