Under the new leadership of tech billionaire and free speech advocate Elon Musk, Twitter has started fact-checking President Joe Biden’s tweets much more aggressively than before.
SO WHAT
Will this bring Democrats closer to Republicans’ concerns about Big Tech’s regulation of speech?
THE TWEETS
A review of Biden’s presidential and White House accounts since his term began turned up two instances of Twitter labeling his tweets with additional context. In the week since Musk took over Twitter, four tweets by the @POTUS or @WhiteHouse accounts have been flagged.
NOVEMBER 1: Actually, that was Nixon.
OCT. 29: Two Pinocchios.
OCT. 28: Rating: mostly false.
OCT. 28: Missing context.
BIG PICTURE
The increased scrutiny of Biden’s tweets comes after complaints from Republican lawmakers that Twitter was turning a blind eye to false claims from the White House, generating widespread distrust of social media among conservatives.
- In a letter last year to then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, inquired into the company’s “fact-check” labeling process.
- Cloud slammed Twitter for failing to affix a label to a tweet from Biden claiming his “Build Back Better Plan will cost zero dollars and add zero dollars to the national debt.”
- “Americans can rightfully question the company’s fact-checking standards and whether they are unbiased, especially considering that the company was quick to fact-check the previous President,” he wrote.
Conservatives have long claimed Big Tech companies actively suppress and censor conservative viewpoints.
WHAT’S NEXT
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has offered a glimmer of hope to conservatives hoping for more balanced content moderation on the platform.
But Musk’s recent public overtures toward the Anti-Defamation League, and other groups that police speech, have given conservatives pause.
- Musk vowed Wednesday, in a tweet which tagged ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and other civil society leaders, that “Twitter will continue to combat hate & harassment & enforce its election integrity policies.”