Irish Examiner view: Twitter bites back on Trump’s baseless rantings

On Tuesday, he attempted the character assassination of TV host Joe Scarborough by spreading the false rumour that he had murdered an aide.
Irish Examiner view: Twitter bites back on Trump’s baseless rantings

An effective way of dealing with vile and inaccurate comments is being shown by Twitter which has labelled two of Donald Trump’s tweets “unsubstantiated” and accused him of making false claims, a first for the social network.

In his inimical fashion, the absurd persona that is Donald J Trump tweeted: “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent.” This was in response to efforts by the governors of some US states to allow postal voting in November’s presidential election, in the wake of Covid-19.

The social network giant begged to disagree with Trump, citing reports from CNN and The Washington Post that show postal voting does not lead to fraud.

President Trump has long used Twitter as a platform to spread conspiracy theories, lies, abuse and insults to his 80 million followers. On Tuesday, he attempted the character assassination of TV host Joe Scarborough by spreading the false rumour that he had murdered an aide.

Twitter has finally called him out on his baseless rantings. It is not before time, so let us hope they continue to do so.

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