President Donald Trump took to Twitter today to threaten that Republicans will attempt to close down social media platforms after Twitter, for the very first time, added fact checks to his tweets.
Many of the fact checks were applied to his unsubstantiated allegations regarding mail-in voting fraud.
Trump tweeted:
"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.
"We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that [...] happen again. Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country.
"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!! [sic]"
Trump posted the tweets just hours after two of his tweets, which claimed that mail-in ballots could lead to electoral fraud, were flagged as "potentially misleading" by the social media platform.
In earlier tweets, Trump President accused Twitter of interfering with the 2020 election and for "stifling free speech". He wrote:
"@Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post....
"....Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!"
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, there has been a push for the November presidential election to be held through mail-in votes - an idea that Trump has repeatedly denounced, stating that it could lead to widespread fraud.
Watch as Donald Trump tells a Chinese-American reporter to "Ask China" during a press conference:Responding to Trump's tweets yesterday evening, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, tweeted a similar assertion:
"And @Twitter is getting subsidized by the federal government for that interference in the form of special immunity worth billions. Time to end #BigTech sweetheart deal w/ government," he wrote.
Per Forbes, last year, Twitter announced it would ban all political ads from its platform.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said then he believed that the spread of political messages "should be earned, not bought". However, the platform has struggled to pinpoint the terms on whether it should police misleading tweets from world leaders.