Published 20:39 IST, October 17th 2020
Trump shares anti-Biden fake news claiming Twitter shut down network to help former VP
US President Donald Trump on October 16 shared a fake story from the right-wing satire site 'The Babylon Bee', about his opponent Joe Biden.
US President Donald Trump on October 16 shared a fake story from the right-wing satire site 'The Babylon Bee', about his opponent Joe Biden. It is unclear whether Trump, who has a history of sharing misinformation, knowingly shared the fake story about Twitter shutting down its entire network to slow the spread of negative news about Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden, but the president surely wasn't pulling any punches. "Wow, this has never been done in history. Why is Twitter doing this?" Trump captioned the post with the link to the satirical article.
The satirical story published on 'The Babylon Bee' bizarrely claimed that the micro-blogging site on October 16 shut down its network to stop negative news about Joe Biden and his family from spreading on Twitter. The satirical website claimed that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey got upset after seeing a series of negative posts on the platform about Joe Biden and before shutting down the network, he also broke a glass box in his office room reading "Break In Case Of Bad Publicity For Democrats."
Jack Dorsey apologises
On October 16, Jack Dorsey tendered his apology concerning an unverified news report about Joe Biden that Twitter had blocked on its platform. The Twitter chief admitted that the company was wrong in blocking the weblinks to the unverified political story that alleged Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden attempted to introduce the former US Vice President to a senior executive at a Ukrainian company he worked at. Twitter had also blocked Trump's press secretary Kayleigh McEnany's handle for sharing the story.
Twitter on various occasions has flagged US President Donald Trump's posts because of spreading misinformation, mostly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 2,00,000 people and has infected over 8 million in the United States. Trump's sharing of fake news and misinformation is linked to his re-election campaign for the upcoming presidential election in the country.
Updated 20:39 IST, October 17th 2020