Twitter set off a firestorm of controversy on Tuesday after labeling two Tweets of President Donald Trump about the dangers of mail in ballot and fraud “false.”
Yoel Roth, the head of “site integrity,” co-wrote a post on May 11 explaining that such tags would be applied mostly to misleading claims about the Wuhan coronavirus, that “content that goes directly against guidance.”
That of course is problematic enough all on its own without then applying it to things unrelated to the virus and tagging the president’s tweet that was not in fact false. Not to mention wading into the hotly contested issue of mail in voting and appearing to pick a side.
Twitter made this demonstrably false claim about about Trump’s tweet, “Trump falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to “a Rigged Election.” However, fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud.” As we reported earlier, there is ample evidence that mail in ballots can increase fraud and that there has been demonstrable fraud related to it.
Turns out the “head of site integrity” has some rather pronounced bias according to his prior tweets and further adds fuel to the belief that there is an anti-Republican exercised by Twitter officials and an inconsistent application of the ‘rules.’ This might explain the labeling of the president’s tweets as ‘false.’
Roth’s prior tweets indicate a rabid hate of the president and Republicans in general that’s not grounded in reality.
Here’s just a small selection.
From Fox News:
Roth has previously referred to Trump and his team as “ACTUAL NAZIS,” mocked Trump supporters by saying that “we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason,” and called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a “personality-free bag of farts.” Last August, Twitter suspended McConnell’s Twitter account, prompting the GOP to threaten to cut off advertising on the site until Twitter relented.
In September 2016, Roth tweeted, “I’ve never donated to a presidential campaign before, but I just gave $100 to Hillary for America. We can’t fu-k around anymore.”
When Trump won the November 2016 election, Roth dejectedly chalked the development up to “[Bernie] Sanders protest voters, and racism,” before sounding more optimistic notes.
“I’m almost ready to stop dwelling on how my friends are complicit in the election of Donald Trump,” he said on Jan. 7, 2017. “Almost.”
“Massive anti-Trump protest headed up Valencia St,” Roth wrote on Jan. 20, 2017, followed by a “heart” emoji and the words “San Francisco.”
I’m just saying, we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason.
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) November 9, 2016
Yes, that person in the pink hat is clearly a bigger threat to your brand of feminism than ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) January 22, 2017
How does a personality-free bag of farts like Mitch McConnell actually win elections?
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) July 28, 2017
In response to inquiry from Fox, Twitter claimed no one person was responsible for their policies and they decried pointing out Roth’s bias. “People who decide to target one person for decisions they don’t agree with know damn well what they’re doing.” This seems a complete deflection and refusal to address the question of his obvious bias.
So here’s the problem with that argument. Apply the policies fairly, then you don’t get people wondering why there’s an uneven application. Why is the president’s true tweet tagged, yet the propaganda lies from the Chinese Communist controlled Twitter accounts are not? Heck, why aren’t Biden’s many lies tagged?
They should have just remained a forum and not tried to wade into fact-checking because it’s compromised them.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) explained that the law protects Twitter because they are consider a forum and not a publisher, but that if they are now exercising an editorial role, they may no longer have a liability shield and be open to being sued.
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