Tech giants at odds over Twitter's 'fact-checking'!

Twitter's "fact-checking" of a series of Trump tweets this week has spotlighted a sharp difference in policy with rival social-media giant Facebook.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey argues Twitter is merely alerting its users to "incorrect" information, while Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg contends that as public platforms, rather than publishers, social media companies shouldn't be the "arbiter of truth."

Zuckerberg spoke out in an interview with Fox News' Dana Perino scheduled for full airing Thursday.

"We have a different policy than, I think, Twitter on this. I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," he said. "Private companies probably shouldn't be, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that."

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey immediately fired back.

"Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me," he said. "Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make."

His reference to "our employees" apparently was an acknowledgement of reports that Twitter's chief fact-checker, Yoel Roth, previously called Trump officials "Nazis" in tweets.

The current controversy began when Twitter attached a warning label to Trump's "series of claims about potential voter fraud" as "unsubstantiated." Twitter, citing "CNN, Washington Post and others," stated, "Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud."

Defending its actions, a Twitter spokesman said Trump's tweets contained "potentially misleading information about voting processes" and had been "labeled to provide additional context."

Critics of Twitter, however, cited considerable evidence of voter fraud through mail-in balloting and pointed out the company has taken no similar action against Chinese propaganda that has spread on the platform since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak.

"Thanks for the clarification @jack. This makes YOU accountable for allowing the Chinese Communist Party to abuse this site with misinformation & propaganda spread across the globe - all while the CCP bans and suppresses their own people from using Twitter!" Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. wrote.

Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale accused Twitter of election interference.

"We always knew that Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to obstruct and interfere with President Trump getting his message through to voters," he said in a statement. "Partnering with the biased fake news media 'fact checkers' is only a smoke screen Twitter is using to try to lend their obvious political tactics some false credibility. There are many reasons the Trump campaign pulled all our advertising from Twitter months ago, and their clear political bias is one of them."

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., warned Tuesday that Twitter might lose its liability protection as a "forum" for opinions and be treated as a publisher if it continues to exercise "editorial control."

"The law still protects social media companies like @Twitter because they are considered forums not publishers. But if they have now decided to exercise an editorial role like a publisher then they should no longer be shielded from liability & treated as publishers under the law," the senator said.

The law still protects social media companies like @Twitter because they are considered forums not publishers.

But if they have now decided to exercise an editorial role like a publisher then they should no longer be shielded from liability & treated as publishers under the law.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) May 27, 2020

Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said Rubio essentially is informing Twitter that "actually having a fact-checker and then standing behind whatever the fact-checker says ... turns Twitter into something that is not."

"He says that it’s turning Twitter into publishers," Limbaugh noted. "It’s an empty vessel, and its users are who fill it with content. Once they start adding content like this by putting fact-checkers in and then backing the fact-checkers, then they have abandoned this legal position that protects them from liability."

Limbaugh said the once social media companies get in "the content game, and once they start playing and trying to discredit who says what by fact-checking, that then removes the liability shield."

"Also, when are they gonna start fact-checking Democrats? Do not think that they’re gonna get away with only fact-checking Trump. They may not have thought this through. They may not have thought it out. Surely their lawyers."

Limbaugh asked: "Where were the fact-checkers when Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler and John Brennan and James Clapper and James Comey were claiming to have proof that Trump colluded with Russia, and they were tweeting it day in and day out?"

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri has proposed legislation to remove the blanket immunity large tech companies enjoy.