On the heels of being “fact-checked” by Twitter’s clearly biased “right opinion” police, President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he would soon be issuing an executive order that would hold social-media companies to account for infringing on Americans’ right to free speech. “Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservative voices,” Trump said, warning, “We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.”
Trump’s contention is made that much more relevant given the fact that Twitter has not “fact-checked” any of the demonstrably false COVID-19 propaganda posted from Chinese communist officials. This glaring inconsistency serves to expose the fundamental problem with these self-appointed arbiters of “truth” — they are playing off opinion-checking as fact-checking.
This reality has been demonstrated by the fact that Twitter’s “Head of Site Integrity,” Yoel Roth, who is responsible for “fact-checking” (which he got wrong, ironically) Trump’s tweet on the problem of fraud associated with mail-in ballots, is an avid anti-Trump and anti-Republican leftist based upon his own social-media history. Roth has called the Trump administration “ACTUAL NAZIS,” derided Trump supporters in “fly-over states” because they “voted for a racist tangerine,” and labeled Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a “personality-free bag of farts.” He donated to Hillary Clinton in 2016, tweeting that “I just gave $100 to Hillary for America. We can’t f___ around anymore.”
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey lashed out after Roth was unmasked as chief of Twitter’s opinion police, telling critics to “leave our employees out of this.” Dorsey then ridiculously asserted, “We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.” Actually, Twitter has yet to correct its erroneous labeling of Trump’s tweet on mail-in voting as a false claim despite the existence of numerous reports showing that those ballots are indeed susceptible to massive fraud.
Dorsey then hit overdrive in his double-speak, claiming, “This does not make us an ‘arbiter of truth.’ Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions.” How exactly haranguing critics for exposing Twitter’s “Head of Site Integrity” for leftist bias equates to “more transparency” Dorsey failed to explain.
In truth, Trump’s decision has been a long time in the making, as his administration has increasingly raised alarms over the growing censorship practices by social-media giants Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The Wall Street Journal reports, “As drafted, the White House order would seek to reshape the way that federal regulators view Twitter and other social-media companies — not as hosts of speech but as monopolies that control millions of Americans’ daily experiences on their platforms. … It could also lay groundwork for treating them as public squares where individuals’ First Amendment rights are protected. The draft order is far-reaching in scope.”
Following Trump’s announced crackdown on social media, it comes as little surprise that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg quickly came out criticizing Twitter. “I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be arbiter of truth of everything that people say online,” Zuckerberg (rather hypocritically) insisted. “Private companies probably shouldn’t be, especially these platform companies, shouldn’t be in the position of doing that.” In other words, Thanks for screwing this up for us, Dorsey.
Update: After several months, Twitter has now fact-checked Chinese communist officials false claims that COVID-19 originated in the U.S.