Twitter has placed a disclaimer on a recent post from Donald Trump, saying the tweet violated the company’s “civic and election integrity” rules and made “misleading health claims”.
The US president had claimed mail drop boxes which will be used by some voters to place their ballots during the US election in November “are not Covid sanitised” and are “a big fraud!”.
In the same tweet, he said: “So now the Democrats are using Mail Drop Boxes, which are a voter security disaster. Among other things, they make it possible for a person to vote multiple times. Also, who controls them, are they placed in Republican or Democrat areas?”
In a tweet, Twitter said: “We placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our Civic Integrity Policy for making misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting.”
And in a disclaimer that greeted people before they could read the presdient’s tweet, they added: “Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the tweet to remain accessible.”
Democrats across the country are promoting drop boxes as a convenient and reliable option for voters who do not want to entrust their ballots to the US Postal Service (USPS).
Republican officials in other states have prevented their use.
Democrats are concerned the integrity of the USPS is being undermined by the president as for months Trump has tweeted about how the system will be used to rig the election despite there being no evidence that this will be the case.
There are multiple safeguards in place and mail-in voting has been used for decades without any problems – one in four voters cast ballots that way in 2016.