Twitter has brilliantly exposed its own detachment from reality by presuming to lead global action against fake news and violent language.
This digital sewer is as likely to sort fact from falsehood or admonition from abuse as Donald Trump is to lift the tone of public discourse.
Twitter versus Trump is a dark theatre of the absurd; especially in a week where racial tensions have rent apart US society so tragically. Still, the President is right in principle and many in the media have undermined their own interests and principles by instinctively disagreeing with him.
When Twitter tagged a Trump tweet about postal voting, raising doubts about its factual basis and steering readers to a CNN fact check, it was not only a red rag to the President but a laughable presumption of editorial objectivity.
Trump, in his usual bombastic style, had raised objections about California’s Democratic governor’s plan to mail out ballots for November’s presidential election to all registered voters.
Trump tweeted this would make the vote “substantially fraudulent”, opening up the possibility of ballots being robbed, forged or ending up in the hands of non-citizens.
Clearly, these are reasonable concerns and, while the CNN fact check used a headline saying Trump “falsely claims” ballots would be sent to undocumented immigrants, and declared his claims “completely” wrong, it also conceded there had been reports in California and other states of non-citizens registering to vote.
Trump’s concerns are demonstrably well-founded and the fact check clearly overreached by declaring his statements false when they were at most exaggerated. This is not a fact check — this is political spin countering Trump’s political spin.
Yet the liberal left in the US applauded Twitter for this initiative — journalists effectively supported a website imposing its political judgment on the posts of citizens and elected officials without their consent.
There was similar response in Australia, with the ABC’s Leigh Sales, for instance, tweeting that this was a “brilliant” move.
Brilliant that twitter is fact-checking the regular stream of misinformation from the US President on this platform https://t.co/nfrtGaeoyr
— Leigh Sales (@leighsales) May 27, 2020
The timing of this intervention, six months from the presidential election, is instructive.
Where has Twitter been for the past three years when its preferred fact checkers such as CNN and The Washington Post were in a frenzy over the RussiaGate confection?
It might have been useful if media organisations such as these, and the ABC, had fact-checked their reporting before spreading conspiracy theories aimed at delegitimising the Trump presidency. Instead, Four Corners produced a three-part series on “The story of the century” and Radio National ran a multi-series podcast called “Russia, if you’re listening” — and nary a fact check in sight.
Much of the world’s media has fuelled confected scandals against Trump and now they laud a digital platform for countering the President’s spin under the guise of fact checking. And they wonder why voters hold the media in low regard.
Trump’s clever response, through an executive order, was to ensure Twitter carries all the legal obligations of a publisher — if it wants to take an editorial line, like a publisher, it should face the same responsibilities. (This goes to the broader point about the digital giants soaking up extravagant revenues based largely on content produced by others for which they do not pay or accept any legal responsibilities.)
Twitter’s hypocrisy on fact-checking seemed insurmountable yet it outdid itself within days. This social media platform that thrives on hate decided to call out Trump on “glorifying” violence.
In the wake of the rioting and looting that erupted in the US after the appalling killing of African-American man George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, Trump decided to weigh in on Twitter.
Blunt and divisive as ever, he warned that the national guard and military could be used and threatened that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”.
Looting leads to shooting, and that’s why a man was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday night - or look at what just happened in Louisville with 7 people shot. I don’t want this to happen, and that’s what the expression put out last night means....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020
Twitter flagged this tweet as violating its rules and “glorifying violence” even though it is a warning that has been issued countless times in the US and elsewhere when looting has occurred during riots or natural disasters.
Trump responded to Twitter’s action by pointing out that it ignores lies and abuse from China and the radical left.
Unedifying, undignified and aggressive? Sure, that is Trump. But he is right. Twitter hosts an endless stream of bile, smears and violent threats against anyone associated with right-of-centre views — mostly uncensured and uncensored.
Just last week on Sky News I highlighted how a host of Twitter users were fantasising again about killing a clutch of right-of-centre commentators such as Andrew Bolt, Rita Panahi, Paul Murray, Peta Credlin and me — this stuff goes on daily unencumbered by Twitter rules.
The invocation of violence and spreading of lies is disgraceful no matter where it comes from.
But as a platform most notable for its bilious trade in slurs and fake news, Twitter cannot take the high moral ground over Trump.
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