Twitter’s New Fact-Checking Stance Sets Difficult Precedent
- Pushback against president signals new willingness to step in
- But Trump’s threats are just the start of company’s challenges
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Twitter Inc., the notoriously unfiltered social network that has been called out for doing both too much and not enough to moderate conversations on its service, has entered new territory -- at a particularly risky time.
After years of staying on the sidelines as U.S. President Donald Trump pushed falsehoods and questionable information on its social-media service, Twitter on Tuesday took the unprecedented step of publicly refuting two of Trump’s tweets. When Trump posted that mail-in ballots would lead to a “rigged election,” Twitter added a link to his posts that brought users to a page disputing the claim.