U.S. President Donald Trump listens to questions from reporters after speaking about negotiations with pharmaceutical companies over the cost of insulin for U.S. seniors on Medicare at an event in the Rose Garden at the White House during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Washington, U.S. May 26, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter (TWTR.N) on Tuesday for the first time prompted readers to check the facts in tweets sent by U.S. President Donald Trump, warning readers his claims about mail-in ballots were false and had been debunked by fact checkers.
The blue exclamation mark notification prompted readers to “get the facts about mail-in ballots” and directed them to a page with news articles and information from fact-checkers about the claims.
“Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud,” a headline at the top of the page said.
Trump had claimed in tweets earlier in the day that mail-in ballots would be “substantially fraudulent” and result in a “rigged election.” He also singled out the governor of California over the issue, although the state is not the only one to use mail-in ballots.
Twitter confirmed this was the first time it had applied a label to a tweet by the president under its new “misleading information” policy, introduced earlier in the month.
Reporting by Katie Paul and Elizabeth Culliford; Editing by Leslie Adler and Howard Goller