Twitter takes a first stand against some Trump tweets — but ignores most others

Twitter took a small stand against a pair of unsubstantiated President Donald Trump tweets about voting fraud on Tuesday by adding fact-check warnings, but the move was unlikely to stem the onslaught of criticism the company is facing about tweets it hasn’t acted on, including those peddling conspiracy theories about a deceased congressional staffer.

Here’s what Twitter did, and why the company didn’t do more to admonish the president.

Why Twitter stepped in on Trump’s mail-in ballot tweets

The social network, which has long had policies in place that prohibit “manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes,” said two Trump tweets from earlier Tuesday that baselessly claimed mail-in ballots are likely to be “substantially fraudulent” contained misleading information about the voting process. And so, Twitter spokesperson Katie Rosborough said in an email, the posts by Trump “have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots” — a first for the social network. The new notices appended to the posts don’t explicitly call Trump’s remarks false, but they direct users to news reports contradicting the president’s remarks.

The move marks one of the first cases of the company enforcing its policy of labeling tweets by public officials that may violate its rules. Twitter has long said it may take lesser actions, such as adding those warning notices, instead of taking down posts by politicians because their remarks are of public interest. Rosborough said in an email that the Trump tweets did not violate its rules because the president did not directly try to dissuade people from voting. In labeling the tweets, the company declined to take more forceful action, such as requiring the president to delete the post and lock his account until he did so.

Why Twitter didn’t act on the Scarborough tweets

The social network has faced widespread backlash for declining to take enforcement action against separate posts by the president baselessly suggesting MSNBC host Joe Scarborough may have been involved in the death of a staffer who worked under him while he served in Congress. Rosborough said the tweets did not violate the company’s policies — which include rules against certain types of disinformation and targeted harassment.