Twitter, ‘The SMS of the Internet’ has millions of active users and is the most used website on the internet. Apart from being a medium of social interaction, it acts as a quick source of information. It had recently updated its terms and conditions on warning labels against false news.
But when it comes to influential personalities like Donald Trump, the American microblog falters in enforcing the policies to its fullest.
Donald Trump, the President of The United States, has 80.3 million followers on Twitter. He is known for his long history with Twitter, which mostly contains picking up fights with other politicians, creating controversies, and false accusations. But Twitter that had never openly criticized his rumors, for the first time, sent warning labels to one of the President’s tweets.
What is the post?
With the presidential elections scheduled for the 3rd of November, 2020, 66% of the voters refused to go to polls to cast their votes on account of COVID-19. Taking the pandemic into consideration, the service of mail-in ballots has been extended.
Trump tweeted as follows, which is a false claim as the mail-in ballots are made available only for registered voters and not all people living in California. Further, the fact-checkers have condemned his accusation of the ballots being fraudulent, which would lead to ‘rigged elections,’ as there is no strong evidence.

Trump responded to the warning label by tweeting that Twitter is not allowing Free speech and are interfering with the 2020 Presidential Election.
He further accused the reports of CNN being fake.
This is being backed up by the presidential campaign manager Brad Parscale who criticized Twitter for “partnering with biased fact-checkers”.
Another rumor raised unwantedly by Trump was the controversy of the MSNBC host, Joe Scarborough having a hand in the death of his employee Lori Clausitis. He revisited the case and tweeted,
He claimed that ‘Psycho Joe’ murdered the ‘crazy Clausitis’ for preventing their affair from coming into light.
“So many unanswered & obvious questions, but I won’t bring them up now! Law enforcement eventually will?” he tweeted.
The deceased lady was actually found dead in her office after she, getting her head hit by a fall due to heart problems. This was actually proved true by the medical reports and autopsy submitted by her widower Timothy Klausutis.
He wrote a letter to the CEO of Twitter requesting to pull down the alleged accusations of the President. He called them “Horrible lies” and wanted to “preserve the memory of my dead wife” and prevent it from being “perverted for perceived political gain.”
Trump responded to the letter, which was published by CNN, by saying, “I’m sure ultimately they want to get to the bottom of it, and it’s a very serious situation. As you know, there is no statute of limitations.”
However, Twitter declined Timothy Klausutis’ request by expressing “deep sorry” for the pain caused by the statements. It fears to do so, maybe because they would lose a good number of active followers. Twitter uses the warning label to manage between the right to express and the awareness of fake news. This is how it worked for COVID-19 information.
Donald Trump seems to be set on creating controversies at this time when the elections are around the corner. He accused the former US President, Barack Obama, for his ‘double standards.’ It is not much of a surprise as he had already supported the rumor that the first black President, Obama was not born in the States and hence cannot become a President. This was before he was elected as the President in 2016.
He has been defending himself on social media by saying that it was he who efficiently reduced the number of COVID-19 cases by 15 to 20 times.
Twitter should be ready to face anything boldly with its updated policies as there is more to come.