Twitter has taken the unprecedented step of labeling two tweets by President Trump as promoting misinformation.
The warnings are attached to missives Trump fired off Tuesday morning where he claimed that mail-in ballots are fraudulent and can cause a “rigged election” in November.
It’s the primary time the social media platform has annotated tweets from the President of the us — arguably Twitter’s most prolific user who frequently airs grievances, sometimes containing dubious claims, to his 80 million followers.
The Twitter warning, which reads, “Get the facts about mail-in ballots,” links to variety of stories articles debunking the president’s claims that the voting-by-mail process is rife with fraud.
Twitter’s decision to rebuke the president’s claims came after days of tweets from Trump about mail-in voting also as his unsubstantiated allegations that MSNBC host and former Florida congressman Joe Scarborough may somehow are involved within the 2001 death of his intern Lori Klausutis.
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…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
On Tuesday, it emerged that Klausutis’ widower wrote a letter to Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey asking him to get rid of the conspiratorial tweets about his wife’s death — saying they were incredibly upsetting.
“These conspiracy theorists, including last the President of the us , still spread their bile and misinformation on your platform disparaging the memory of my wife and our marriage,” T.J. Klausutis wrote within the letter obtained by CNN.
A Twitter spokesperson on Tuesday apologized to Klausutis for the pain caused by Trump’s statements but declined to get rid of the tweets.
Trump was asked about Klausutis’ letter during a garden event Tuesday and said he had read it but declined to prevent pushing the baseless claim that Scarborough was involved in his staffer’s death — even going thus far on suggest he was doing the family a favor.
The doctor ruled Klausutis’ death accidental, concluding she hit her head on a desk after passing out due to an undiagnosed heart disease .
“Have you seen the letter written by her husband begging Twitter to delete your tweets, talking about how hard it’s been for his family and him to affect it?” one reporter asked Trump.
“Yeah I even have , but I’m sure ultimately they need to urge to rock bottom of it and it’s a really serious situation,” Trump said.
“It’s a really suspicious thing, and that i hope somebody gets to rock bottom of it. it might be a really good thing. As you recognize , there’s no statute of limitations,” he continued.
The White House didn’t immediately answer an invitation for discuss Twitter’s action.
