President Donald Trump is pushing back against social media companies after his tweets were fact checked.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Thursday about social media, a move that comes after Twitter fact checked Trump’s mail-in ballot tweets for containing “potentially misleading misinformation,” according to tweets by several White House reporters on Wednesday.
No other details about what the executive order will contain have been released. The White House referred CNET to “pool reports” about the executive order.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump said in a tweet that Twitter “has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct” and that “big action” would follow. He didn’t specify what this action would be but White House reporters for The New York Times, PBS and CNN tweeted on Wednesday that the president plans to sign an executive order “pertaining to social media” tomorrow.
White House says Trump will sign an executive order “pertaining to social media” tomorrow, but provides no details on what it might say or do.
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) May 27, 2020
The expected action by Trump highlights how tensions between some of the world’s largest social media companies and conservatives are heating up amid their efforts to crack down on misinformation. Twitter and other social media companies have repeatedly denied they suppress conservative speech.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted to his more than 80 million followers that “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-in-Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent,” a claim that has been debunked by fact-checkers and news organizations. He continued his remarks in another tweet, stating that it will be a “Rigged Election.” In a rare move, Twitter then added a label to Trump’s two tweets because they contained “potentially misleading information about voting processes.”
A label appears under both tweets that reads: “Get the facts about mail-in ballots.” Clicking on the warning notice directs people to a page explaining that fact-checkers say there isn’t any evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud.
