What is Twitter’s New Unpopular Feature, Fact-Check?

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey

This week has been interesting because, for the first time, social media giant Twitter fact-checked two of America’s President Donald Trump posts. The platform has been receiving a lot of heat from people who thought Twitter was doing little to stop the spread of fictitious information.

In this case, President Trump tweeted that US’s mail-in ballots in this year’s elections would be fraudulent. The tweets were met by harsh criticism, and Twitter had no option but to tag the posts with a fact-checker.

The tool is under the two tweets, and what it basically does is give users factual information about mail-in ballot, in comparison to what has been posted. Its existence then implies that the targeted tweets could be false.


It is likely we will be seeing this kind of response from Twitter, which has been cited not doing enough to fight fake news. President Trump uses the platform on the daily, and he sends all forms of tweets, from political messages to obvious jabs targeting rivals.

It has also been whispered that Twitter has always been reluctant to deleting false information sent by prominent people. The internet company has previously done away with tweets and accounts that perpetuated any kind of fake news but from small players.

Twitter has a blog that has since been updated with information about how it deals with misleading information. The update was motivated by COVID-19, which keeps replenished with new information and data about symptoms and modes of spread.

The platform introduced ‘new labels and warning’, which we think ‘Fact check’ is part of.

“Depending on the propensity for harm and type of misleading information, warnings may also be applied to a Tweet. These warnings will inform people that the information in the Tweet conflicts with public health experts’ guidance before they view it,” reads the blog.

Furthermore, Twitter’s spokesperson Lindsay McCallum supported the decision to tag Trump’s mail-in ballot tweets. According to her, “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.”

Of course, Trump is not happy and has since threatened some form of retaliation.

The President says that tech corporations are doing everything ‘to censor in advance of the 2020 election.’

And what is that big action that will follow as the President promises?

The action, whatever it will be, is already being supported by the likes of lawyer and Senator Josh Hawley.


Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has also supported the development, saying that he is accountable for any actions that the corporation takes.

How this plays out will be very interesting in the next couple of weeks and months.

READ MORE: Donald Trump Threatens To Close Down Social Media Platforms 


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