Twitter flags President Trump's tweet for spreading misinformation

Social networking site Twitter, on Tuesday, flagged US President Donald Trump's tweet regarding 'mail-in ballots', which is a topic of contention with the Presidential elections set to take place in November this year. This is the first such move and is done so to prevent the spread of misinformation.

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Twitter flags Trump's tweet for misinformation

President Trump tweeted that Mail-in ballots will lead to voting fraud stating that these mailboxes will be robbed, and will be 'forged and even illegally printed out' In a subsequent tweet, Trump said that it will be a rigged election and ended yet another rant with 'No way!'

Twitter has updated its policies regarding fake news and misinformation earlier this year and for the first time, flagged a tweet by a global leader. Below the tweet, Twitter applied a warning sign with a link to the facts about the topic, which, then clarifies the claims and states the facts. 

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The move comes after years in which Twitter has declined to apply its community guidelines and other rules of the road to the 45th U.S. president. It’s too soon to tell whether this action represents a turning point for Twitter in its treatment of Trump. But the warning labels suggest that the president has finally crossed a line that the company was not willing to move for him.

Trump frequently amplifies misinformation, spreads abuse and uses his pulpit to attack private citizens and public figures alike, but has never faced sanctions on his account.

In another update earlier in May, a statement by twitter read, "During active conversations about disputed issues, it can be helpful to see the additional context from trusted sources. Earlier this year, we introduced a new label for Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media." 

"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."

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(with inputs from agencies)