Twitter Says Trump’s Renewed Voter Fraud Claims Don’t Violate Rules, Despite Previous Fact Check

Twitter will not label President Trump’s renewed claims that the 2020 election “will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history” due to mass vote-by-mail, despite fact-checking the president last month for similar claims. Trump tweeted multiple times Monday criticizing the push for increasing remote voting through mail-in ballots for the November election. “RIGGED …

Trump tweeted multiple times Monday criticizing the push for increasing remote voting through mail-in ballots for the November election.

“RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!” Trump tweeted Monday morning.

A few hours later, he warned that “Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history – unless this stupidity is ended.”

“We voted during World War One & World War Two with no problem, but now they are using Covid in order to cheat by using Mail-Ins!” Trump argued.

A Twitter spokesperson told National Review that the president’s tweets “are currently not in violation of the Twitter Rules and will not be labeled.”

In May, Twitter added a fact-check for the first time to two of Trump’s tweets, after the president claimed “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent” and criticized an order signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to mail ballots for the November elections to the state’s 20.6 million registered voters.

….living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020

The fact check linked to a Twitter event CNN headline which read, “Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.” Twitter later clarified that its label was implemented over concerns that Trump “could confuse voters about what they need to do to receive a ballot and participate in the election process.”

Per its “Civic integrity policy,” which was drafted last month, Twitter says it will not take censor “broad, non-specific statements about the integrity of elections or civic processes.”

In an interview with OneZero, Twitter’s vice president of global communications Brandon Borrman revealed that Twitter’s fact check came after a third-party partner in its “elections integrity hub” flagged Trump’s claims, only for the company to decide initially that the tweets did not violate Twitter’s policy against manipulating or interfering in an election. The platform then conducted a second review under its labeling guidelines, which were rolled out for misleading tweets about Covid-19, and subsequently decided to recommend a label. Twitter leadership then approved the tag.

President Trump has been outspoken since the Twitter fact check, warning that Republicans “will strongly regulate” social media platforms, before signing an executive order to revisit Section 230 protections for tech companies through litigation and legislation.