President Donald Trump is trying to scare Americans about the potential for voter fraud this November.
Trump is claiming that mail-in ballots will cause voter fraud in November, but non-partisan voting experts are saying just the opposite, along with others who have previously investigated the claim. In fact, if anything, people haven't received their mail-in ballots on time, forcing them out of the voting equation entirely — not causing them to submit several ballots.
The scary part, though? (And yes, it does get scarier than our President spewing false information and presenting it as fact.)
Twitter is saying it's all good, President Trump.
Earlier this year, in May, Twitter did add a fact check label to Trump's tweets about the same topic. Now, though, just about a month later, Twitter is claiming this doesn't violate their terms of service.
I'm sorry, but I'm just straight-up confused.
To put it into context, let's take a look at the President's tweets. Here's just one of his many tweets on the topic that wasn't marked as providing fake information:
Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history - unless this stupidity is… https://t.co/Ps0AaQkk9s— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1592833523.0
These tweets, though, posted just about one month before the above tweet were marked as factually inaccurate, and I'm failing to see the difference between the two:
....living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with… https://t.co/SvXc52LTlG— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1590495475.0
In an age when a lot of people get their news from social media, social media companies need to step up and be sure they are fact-checking the information that people put out there, especially high-profile figures like Donald Trump.
It's not just up to the news organizations to correct inaccuracies on social media, it's up to those companies, too. We have to hold our country to a standard of integrity and not be afraid of being called a name or facing backlash because we're standing up for what's right and giving people the facts.
People have the right to process the facts however they wish, but they can't do that if they're not being given the facts in the first place.
Facts are meant to inform, and from there, people can make a judgment call about what the best choice is for them. If I'm told the dog I want to buy can weigh up to 100 pounds, and I live in a small studio apartment, I can take those facts and draw the conclusion that it's probably not smart for me to buy that specific dog because it won't be a great choice to have a big dog in a small space. Similarly, we need to be sure that people are getting the facts from the media, and in 2020, that extends to (social) media.
Over 40 percent of Twitter users are on the platform daily. Twitter, and all social media platforms need to stop being afraid of offending someone for fact-checking them. They need to stop being afraid of what Donald Trump, or other public figures, may try to say about them and instead, inform the public, use their platform for good.
So, no, Twitter, this isn't OK.
It's not even remotely OK to let something fly by that you addressed a month ago. If it was false information then, and nothing has changed, which it hasn't, it's false information now.
Do better, Twitter, because in a world of opinions being presented as facts, we, as a society, need all the back up we can get.