Twitter CEO Unwilling To Budge From His Stance Of Including Fact-Checks On Donald Trump's Tweet
Twitter chief executive officer Jack Dorsey said he fully supports the company's decision to accompany two of President Trump's tweets with a fact-check, despite facing strong criticism from the president and his coadjutors. This comes as the White House is gearing up to form an executive order that would monitor social media giants including Twitter for being bias in how they moderate the content on their platforms.
The executive order, according to a CNBC report will target Facebook and Twitter among a slew of other online platforms in a bid to ensure fairness in their content moderation strategies. On May 28, Jack took to Twitter to address the bickering triggered by the company's move to include fact-check with Trump's tweets for the first time.
On May 26, Twitter integrated a link under two tweets from the president about mail-in ballots that read "Get the facts about mail-in ballots." When Twitteratis clicks this link, it takes them to a page that suggests the president falsely claimed the mail-in ballots would cause a rigged election, despite fact-checkers claiming no evidence links mail-in ballots with voter fraud.
Standing by his stance that Trump's tweets are likely to mislead American people into thinking there is no need to register to get a ballot. It is worth mentioning here that only registered voters are eligible for receiving ballots. Dorsey said the social media giant will include the link with Trump's tweets to make this clearer for the people.
Dorsey explained that the move doesn't imply that the platform serves as a moderator of truth. Twitter simply wants to make sure that the conflicting statements are double-checked with reliable pieces of information, allowing people to judge for themselves. Moreover, he justified Twitter's decision by saying the move brings more transparency from the company.
Ahead of Dorsey's statement, the White House had warned social media companies that Trump plans to sign an executive order on May 28 about these online platforms. CNBC managed to get its hand on a draft of this order that suggests Trump would ask the Federal Communications Commission to propose, as well as clarify Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Aside from that, the executive order would encourage the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on companies that are involved in misleading acts of communication. Twitter is been cited by name in the working draft. Despite all the controversy surrounding Twitter's decision to add fact-checks on the president's tweets, it looks like the social media behemoth is bent on keeping it for people to see whether the president's claims are backed by facts.