
Twitter tags Trump tweet with fact-checking warning - l31g
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52815552
======
User23
Before I clicked on the link, I assumed this was yet another egregious lie.
But this one really doesn't qualify. It falls squarely in the category of
reasonable opinions. Let's look at the claim: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that
Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent". Clearly
the veracity of the statement rests on the word "substantially." It's
inconceivable that no one ever takes, for example, an elderly relative's mail
in ballot and votes it fraudulently. So for this to be a reasonable opinion,
it merely has to be reasonably possible for the claim to be true.

So, let's consider if such fraud could possibly be substantial. Let's use
California as an example. Registering to vote is easy, all you need is a web
browser[1] and a mailing address where you reside or with a resident willing
to give you ballots or ignorant that they are receiving them[2]. Also, the
State of California faces an impractically large legal hurdle to reject
suspected fraudulent ballots[3] so it can be assumed that most if not all will
be accepted. It seems clear based on the observable facts that substantial
fraud is certainly possible under the California regime. Please note I am not
claiming such fraud actually happens, merely that it is easily practicable for
an organization as well organized as, say, a political party. To be honest, I
bet literally hundreds if not thousands of readers on this site could build
"California vote fraud as as service" as a side gig. Let's disrupt the
electoral process for a billion dollar valuation!

From this I conclude that while I personally disagree with the President, this
particular statement is a (probably, I sure hope) incorrect opinion, not a
factually incorrect statement.

[1] [https://covr.sos.ca.gov/](https://covr.sos.ca.gov/)

[2] [https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/more-
than-80-bal...](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/more-
than-80-ballots-sent-to-san-pedro-apartment/106443/)

[3] [https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-
aler...](https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-
alert/article203746944.html)

~~~
occasionopinion
It's not an opinion, it's a statement. Therein lies the rub.

There is no reasonable interpretation of "There is NO WAY (ZERO!)" to mean
"there may possibly be".

e: The President just helpfully tweeted out in support of my argument:

"They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, __which will lead to massive
corruption and fraud __, is incorrect "

~~~
username90
There is evidence that mail in ballots causes more problems though. However to
find unbiased information about it you have to search for articles from a time
before it became political.

> Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be
> compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting
> booth, statistics show. Election officials reject almost 2 percent of
> ballots cast by mail, double the rate for in-person voting.

New York times article:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-
vote-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail-
faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html)

------
hadrien01
The warning links to this page:
[https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384](https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384)

It's a sort of article (I didn't know Twitter had this type of format, I
really like it, weirdly enough) that contains an introduction text and a 'What
you need to know' paragraph, followed by fact-checking tweets from press
organizations.

I know where the tweets come from, but who has written the introduction and
summary paragraphs, and who has compiled those tweets and photos in that
order?

~~~
piotrkaminski
According to Ars Technica [1], this page is "created and managed by our global
curation team".

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/twitters-
first-f...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/twitters-first-fact-
check-on-president-trump-calls-out-false-claims/)

------
Barrin92
If we're honest a lot of his tweets violate twitters content policy and they
do so blatantly. I wonder if they'll ever have the guts to straight up hand
him at least a temp ban.

~~~
gkoberger
I understand this route. The President of the United States already has a
gigantic platform, so it's not like he'll just go away like @nero did. This
gives Twitter a chance to annotate his hate with facts, and hopefully reach
his audience. Banning him just makes him a martyr, without lessening his
reach.

I do wish the UI was a bit... angrier. The friendly light blue doesn't exactly
scream "misinformation!"

But as they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Removing him from Twitter
won't make him or his base any less hateful. It's a constant reminder that he
needs to be removed. I think if Twitter and news organizations just started
ignoring him, many people would forget how horrible he is.

~~~
acbart
I disagree, giving certain folks a platform only raises them up and
legitimatizes them. Didn't the Reddit folks discover that shutting down
hateful subreddits prevents them from popping back up effectively? I believe
this is the citation[1].

[1] [http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-
hate.pdf](http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf)

~~~
Orou
> I disagree, giving certain folks a platform only raises them up and
> legitimatizes them.

Who do you believe should have final say over which person or group of people
can have a platform, and who can't?

Should it be whoever owns that particular platform? Should it be the
government? Should it be the court of public opinion? I've yet to see a
compelling argument for deplatforming that answers this question, because what
is acceptable to society has large grey areas that are constantly shifting. I
think the intentions are nothing but wonderful - I'm very glad that
communities like those in the report you cited, and many similar ones, no
longer exist on Reddit. The problem as I see it is that censorship lowers
visibility of hate speech very effectively, but if anything seems to
strengthen people's convictions that they are right about what they believe.
Hateful subreddits may disappear, but is that clear evidence that the people
that participated in them changed their minds about what they had expressed
online? I find that conclusion dubious at best.

I see this issue most strongly with conspiracy theorists, which seem to be a
dime a dozen in 2020. Censorship is nothing if not evidence that what someone
is saying is true - see the recent "Plandemic" viral video as a great example.

Deplatforming is, like I said, well-intentioned, but like so many "solutions"
it is obsessed with the symptom of the disease, not the cause. It is based on
the very old but very wrong notion that 'if only everyone believed what I
believe, all the world would be at peace'. That notion is the cornerstone of
religious dogma and has been the justification for religious conversion,
forcible or otherwise, for millennia. There _are_ proven ways to moderate
people's beliefs through civil discourse. The issue is that it is so time
consuming, unsatisfying, and thankless (not to mention that you don't get to
play moral superiority games) that I'm not surprised people would rather just
throw down the banhammer instead.

~~~
jolux
The point of deplatforming is not to change the minds of true believers in
extremist causes, it’s to hinder their ability to recruit.

~~~
sfj
“The more you tighten your grasp, the more star systems slip through your
fingers.”

Censoring the point of view of others merely lends credence to their point of
view. Unless you find a way to censor them completely, you will cause more and
more people to lose faith in _your_ ideals.

~~~
jolux
Got any proof of that?

~~~
sfj
All the new alternative social networks and video sites that have cropped up
and the old ones that have ben gaining in popularity is evidence that people
are beginning to turn away. Ex. lbry.tv, bitchute.com, gab.com, voat.co,
phuks.co, zerohedge.com

~~~
jakelazaroff
This is an expected consequence of deplatforming — once you kick them off,
those people are going to go _somewhere_. For this argument to work, you need
to show that those networks are able to grow _more_ than they would as a
community on a mainstream platform.

~~~
sfj
Networks tend to follow an exponential growth rate, so even if the same number
moved to the alternative platforms, the time it would take them to grow large
enough to be significant would shorten substantially.

~~~
jakelazaroff
Why would it shorten the growth period compared to mainstream platforms, where
there are far more users who could join the community? Is there any evidence
that this is the case?

~~~
sfj
> Why would it shorten the growth period compared to mainstream platforms,
> where there are far more users who could join the community?

Because networks tend to follow an exponential growth rate. The time it takes
to go from 1 to 128 equals the same time it takes to go from 128 to 16384, so
if you add 127, you've shortened the time for the network to grow from 1 to
16384 by half. Meanwhile, for a platform that already had 16384, subtracting
127 is a drop in the bucket.

> Is there any evidence that this is the case?

Facebook/Youtube/Twitter/et al couldn't have grown as much as they did as fast
as they did unless that was the case.

~~~
jakelazaroff
Not all exponential growth is the same: x^2 and x^1.01 are both exponential.
I’m asking you for evidence that the exponent is higher for niche isolated
networks than it is for communities on platforms with algorithmic promotion to
a massive existing userbase.

------
blockmarker
I am glad that unelected corporations are protecting us from the opinions of
elected officials.

~~~
anonymouswacker
Twitter deserves our respect for stepping out of their lane
(marketing/advertising) to ensure that all information on their website is
100% scientifically accurate. Thank you, selfless heroes!

------
root_axis
Seems like this policy will be difficult to scale... Who is taking odds on
Trump threatening a DOJ investigation before the week is over?

~~~
dbbk
There is no crime the DOJ can justify investigating...

~~~
root_axis
Well, it remains to be seen if that actually matters. Let's hope it still
does.

[https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/27/after-twitter-fact-
check-t...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/27/after-twitter-fact-check-trump-
threatens-to-regulate-or-close-down-social-media-platforms/)

------
11thEarlOfMar
How would one actually implement a high integrity fact-checking service?

~~~
Recurecur
Here's my vote for the best way:

\- Crowd sourced

\- If 80%+ agreement it's true or false, report it as such with top sources
provided

\- If less than 80%, report it as "controversial leaning (strongly)..." with
sources provided, inviting actual research

In the US, the question of mail voting encouraging fraudulence would get far
less than a 80% consensus.

------
xeeeeeeeeeeenu
This what a 2012 New York Times article[1] said about mail-in ballots:

>Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be
compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth,
statistics show. Election officials reject almost 2 percent of ballots cast by
mail, double the rate for in-person voting.

I'm sorry, but that so-called "fact checking" looks like a classic case of
"Trump said something is bad, so we must defend that thing at all costs".

[1] - [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-
vote-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail-
faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html)

------
__s
I'd just like to commend Twitter for going the route I suggested YouTube take
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23266238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23266238)

No need to censor, only offer a second opinion

------
im3w1l
More and more it seems to be devolving into:

Someone: I don't trust the establishment

Establishment fact checker: FALSE. The establishment is perfectly trustworthy.

Maybe we need to start talking about The Right to be Suspicious or something.

------
hhs
Curious what the process was in designing that warning. How did they A/B test
this? How did they experiment with different fonts, colors, and spaces?

~~~
nojito
Looks like they tested it earlier this year.

The demo was a bright orange notice.

[https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/twitter-testing-
new-w...](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/twitter-testing-new-ways-
fight-misinformation-including-community-based-points-n1139931)

~~~
hhs
This is neat, thanks.

It’s interesting that in the article they write: “A leaked demo features
bright red and orange badges for tweets that are deemed "harmfully
misleading."”

But currently, they didn’t use that approach. Right now the warning tag is an
exclamation point circled badge with blue text.

------
runawaybottle
If Covid second wave happens in November, large scale mail in ballot efforts
could lead to the biggest voter turn out in American history.

~~~
baddox
And if that happens, take note of which political parties/groups fight tooth
and nail because they know that voter turn out is bad for them. (It's not
difficult to predict.)

~~~
umvi
Isn't too much voter turnout bad though? Do we really want every poor ignorant
impoverished (or rich) American voting? Or just the people that take democracy
seriously and vote after having puzzled it out? If you reduce the friction too
much (or even force people to vote) you'll get a lot of voting based on who
promised the most goodies/handouts or emotional appeal rather than rational
reasoning.

~~~
viraptor
> every poor ignorant impoverished

There's some serious bias here. There are poor and impoverished people who are
not ignorant. There are also ignorant millionaires. The moment you start
saying who shouldn't be voting, make sure you realise how many people think
you shouldn't be voting either.

At an extreme of that, see what the threshold of "rich" is for people saying
"eat the rich".

~~~
umvi
I thought someone might interpret it that way, which is why I quickly edited
to say "or rich" as well. However, you must admit that the ignorant poor
vastly outnumber the ignorant rich.

~~~
mfarris
The poor vastly outnumber the rich, so what point are you making exactly?

~~~
umvi
precisely that one, that the poor vastly outnumber the rich

~~~
SauciestGNU
So doesn't it stand to reason that the poor should have a greater say in the
operation of our government than the rich do, given that vast outnumbering?

------
sj4nz
Twitter could possibly fund itself for a long time if they hosted a pay-per-
view event of the moment they lock and disable that account for policy
violations.

It could be the most profitable 5-minutes of pay-per-view streaming in history
and also simultaneously the most amazing test of Internet resiliency, ever.

~~~
dbbk
What are you talking about? A live stream of the Twitter admin UI pressing the
"ban account" button? I don't think you've thought this through.

------
jerkstate
It seems like Trump is making a prediction rather than stating a fact, very
very strange use of the phrase "fact-checking" by Twitter

~~~
baddox
Baseless speculation about the integrity of US national elections is a
perfectly reasonable thing to fact-check and tag as misleading.

~~~
jerkstate
I'm glad at least you agree that his tweet is speculation.

~~~
baddox
The real world doesn't work like children playing word games at recess. "It
was technically just a prediction because I was talking about the future and
therefore it's impossible to make any judgements about what I said" just
doesn't play in the real world.

------
Simulacra
If Twitter is going to enact this policy to one entity they must do it to all.
If not then they are not being a neutral platform.

------
blhack
I'm finding the response people are having to this mail in voting thing to
be...puzzling.

It's _not_ a ridiculous thing to wonder about how susceptible mail in voting
is to fraud, and it seems like some of us are putting blinders on simply due
to our distaste for the current president.

If we were to hold a hackathon with a $100,000 prize for the most plausible
path to exploit mail in voting in order to swing an election, are people
implying that there would be no entries? Or maybe no viable entries? That's
ridiculous.

Here's some spitballing: (eh, I removed this. I don't think brainstorming how
to committ election fraud is a good idea. I'm assuming that readers of
_hacker_ news can probably figure out some relatively obvious ways of casting
doubt into the outcome of a mail in election)

How are people looking at what recently happened with 100s of millions of
dollars of fraud being committed against various US unemployment systems, and
not thinking that other systems might be at risk as well?

Remember the Iowa caucus? That was a hastily put together vote _reporting_
system, not even meant for tallying, and look at what a disaster it was. Now
we're expecting that states will radically alter their voting system, in 5
months, and that it won't be vulnerable to interference?

To be clear: I LIKE mail in voting. I have permanent mail in voting status in
my state (Arizona), and my wife and I usually get breakfast at our favorite
restaurant and spend HOURS meticulously researching every candidate and BI on
the form. Being able to take that amount of time is fantastic, and a luxury I
wish everybody could have.

But it doesn't have to be so polar. I like mail in voting, obviously, but I'm
not so stupid as to think that it cannot possibly be criticized. I am a
_hacker_ after all.

Boo to twitter for this. This is twitter obviously putting their finger on the
scale of an election, and after all of the drama surrounding the idea that
foreign actors might have purchased a few 10s of thousands of dollars of
facebook ads, I'd hope that Americans would have a distrust a company where
foreign entities have a major stake doing such a thing. Not acceptable in my
opinion.

Just to highlight my point a little further: here is an article from the
nytimes highlighting that mail in voting is far more vulnerable to fraud than
in person voting: [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-
vote-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail-
faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html)

Here’s a quote from the article:

>Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be
compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth,
statistics show.

and another:

> Election experts say the challenges created by mailed ballots could well
> affect outcomes this fall and beyond.

And another:

> The trend will probably result in more uncounted votes, and it increases the
> potential for fraud. While fraud in voting by mail is far less common than
> innocent errors, it is vastly more prevalent than the in-person voting

So who is to be believed here? Twitter? The New York Times? Why aren’t the
experts from this article being listened to?

~~~
slg
The issue is that mail in voter fraud doesn't scale and you need scale to turn
a national election. So you can argue this is a concern in general, but
someone arguing this is a real problem for the integrity of the 2020
presidential election is being disingenuous at best.

~~~
cgy1
Elections are run by the states, not by the Federal government. If Washington,
the 13th most populous state can conduct elections purely via mail-in ballots,
why not any other state?

~~~
slg
>Elections are run by the states, not by the Federal government.

Sorry, I was talking about national scope and not the federal government
actually running the election. The larger the electorate, the more votes cast,
the more votes needed to change the results, and the more important scaling
becomes in your plan to rig the election.

> If Washington, the 13th most populous state can conduct elections purely via
> mail-in ballots, why not any other state?

I agree.

------
CawCawCaw
So they finally did something about his endless lies after four years. Well,
well.

------
Rebelgecko
Trump is currently tweeting about how this warning message is taking away his
1st amendment rights to free speech, and constitutes interference in the 2020
election. Can't wait for these tweets to get the same warning.

[1]:[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12654275381401886...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265427538140188676)

~~~
thomascgalvin
Jesus goddamned Christ, even the _President of the United States_ doesn't
realize that a corporation is incapable of violating your First Amendment
rights.

~~~
rsynnott
That’s not even the issue. If the government said he was lying, that wouldn’t
impact his first amendment rights; pointing out a lie is not censorship.

------
2019-nCoV
> Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are
> saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive
> corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN
> and the Amazon Washington Post....

> ....Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will
> not allow it to happen!

Whelp, it was fun while it lasted.

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12654275381401886...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265427538140188676)

------
2019-nCoV
This is not going to end well. Every single aspect of life that cannot be
rigorously tested under the scientific method is destined to become a partisan
topic.

There is no way to be sure if mail-in ballots will be anything less than
substantially fraudulent.

~~~
fzeroracer
Considering mail-in voting has been put through the ringer in multiple states
(both red and blue!) with very little voter fraud statistically, it seems like
these days the partisan topics consist of reality vs Trump.

This is something that's been statistically proven to work and yet the amount
of people I see leaping to his very ignorant claims of this topic here is
disappointing. Can you back up the claims that mail-in ballots will be
substantially fraudulent at any level beyond baseless speculation?

~~~
2019-nCoV
Has there been a more polarising American politician than Trump in living
memory? Voter fraud is not a constant. It is completely dynamic. Just his
Tweet completely changes reality. Now, if it does proceed, we'll see increased
scrutiny of mail-in voting, which in turn would reduce fraud. This would then
be cited by opponents as another counter-example, when in reality the
increased scrutiny was the catalyst.

~~~
fzeroracer
This isn't what I was asking. You're changing the argument now to try and
claim that Trump's tweets would have increased scrutiny on mail-in voting,
when in reality most states have had mail-in voting before the Trump
presidency and has seen low levels of voter fraud.

You're trying to do a post-hoc justification in attempt to rationalize Trump's
tweets rather than answer my argument. I'll ask you again: Where's the voter
fraud data showing that vote by mail causes a massive amount of fraud?

~~~
sfj
How do we know how much fraud there is? How much fraud were we aware of at
Enron until they went bust?

------
Fjolsvith
Twitter would just shit themselves if Trump set up a Mastadon server and moved
there.

~~~
techntoke
I think they'd be happy, dems would be happy and repubs would be happy. Let's
make it happen.

~~~
techntoke
Forgot that repubs don't just want free speech. They want everyone to have to
see it and accept their opinion as facts.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Of course, Trump going to Twitter initially was because news reporters were
misquoting him and blending their own opinions as facts.

------
no_carrier
I don't follow Trump on Twitter but go and look up his feed regularly by
Googling 'donald trump twitter'. I always get there by the first result.

This morning? He doesn't seem to be on the front page at all... the first
result is for a search done on twitter.con for 'donald trump twitter', the
next result is for the POTUS account. I would say this fact checking thing has
had a knock on effect to search results.

------
slg
>The move comes on the heels of Twitter's decision not to remove comment
President Trump made about the death of Lori Klausutis in 2001. The president
has tweeted several messages promoting a conspiracy theory that Ms Klausutis
was murdered by MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.

I would be very curious to hear an explanation of this decision. Why do Tweets
about mail in ballots receive a warning but tweets accusing a journalist of
murder don't?

~~~
Rebelgecko
I don't think he actually accused a journalist of murder. He used CYA language
like "the investigation ought to be reopened". The implication is obvious, but
I think that keeps him out of libelous territory. Of course Twitter can have
more strict standards if they want, but so far they've chosen not to.

------
Simulacra
If Twitter is going to do this to one they must do it to all. If not then they
are not being a neutral platform.

------
quxbar
I don't know why all these expert voting frauds don't just take up regular
mail fraud?

------
rurban
Lol. He often twitters nonsense, but in this case Twitter itself is spreading
false information. Of course mail ballots are totally insecure, esp. for
nation state actors. Looks like Twitter joined collaboration with the CIA now,
who is the relevant nation state actor in this case. There are multiple
documented cases.

Same for his Hydroxychloriquine argument, which he promoted as good prevention
(which is good information with scientific studies proving it), and this was
labeled as false and dangerous information. Probably because Chloroquine
phosphat is somewhat dangerous (different drug), and it has no proven
treatment effects.

Please fact check the fact check warnings, and beware of dependent media.

------
godelski
I think one of the issues with this will be how it is linking the correct
information. I like the little inclusion before tweets, but there's no sources
on them. Then when you scroll down on the tweets I see them in this order: The
Hill, WaPo, CNN, a CBS News reporter, a Fortune Magazine reporter, a Vox
reporter, Sr Political Reporter for Huffington, ACLU Nebraska, a CNN political
correspondent.

The issue here is that everything here is considered in the hard left of the
media. I'm concerned that this will only help grow the divide between
Americans, though I also don't have a better alternative to this. Clearly
there is a lack of coverage of this from the right and in fact the opposite. A
quick DDG search of "fox news mail in ballot" pulls up [0][1][2]. So when you
see things like this I think it is easier to say that "the left" is trying to
trick you. If Fox is your primary source of news, then it does look like
Twitter is trying to silence a real issue. If Fox isn't your primary source of
news then it looks like Twitter is trying to fight misinformation. Things are
so crazy that it really is hard to find the truth and there is very good
reason to believe that someone is lying. And no one wants to admit that
someone they've trusted for a long time is lying to them, especially when
there's nuggets of truth that you can hold onto.

So I'm a little worried about the repercussions of this, especially since the
right already thinks Twitter is supporting the left.

Edit: By hard left I mean from the perspective of Fox viewers. My main point
is about the perspective of the people this is specifically aimed at. While on
the left we don't see it that way go talk to your friends on the right, they
see it differently. My concern is because we need to unify and not divide.

[0] [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/voter-fraud-california-
man-...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/voter-fraud-california-man-finds-
dozens-of-ballots-stacked-outside-home)

[1] [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/south-carolina-election-
bal...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/south-carolina-election-ballots-
reportedly-found-in-maryland-this-week)

[2] [https://video.foxnews.com/v/6158607323001#sp=show-
clips](https://video.foxnews.com/v/6158607323001#sp=show-clips)

~~~
Hankenstein2
The problem for me, someone who really wants to be in the middle, is that the
only conservative leaning news outlet that I believe (no facts in my
reporting) does fact based reporting is the Wall Street Journal. If I want
news with data and facts I have to go with the "left" leaning papers.

The Washington Examiner and Fox News have been burning their credibility on a
daily basis.

~~~
sfj
> The Washington Examiner and Fox News have been burning their credibility on
> a daily basis.

Oh really? Name some things they lied about in the last 5 days.

------
Balgair
It's a strange decision by Twitter here, but they are in a strange position.

Donny, love him or hate him, does say a fair few things that are ...
questionable. Jack has talked about this a bit, and their conclusion thus far
has been that anything he says, by virtue of the office, is newsworthy enough.
Policies for thee, but not for he. It's been a battle with users, but everyone
seems to just grumble along.

That policy has worked up until today.

A lot of work went into this decision. They A/B tested the color of the note,
likely the font, the positioning, the exact words, the fact check itself, etc.
This thing went through meeting after meeting and was run past some good legal
counsel. Twitter isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but it's also not a
rusty shovel. They red-teamed this a fair bit, I'd imagine. They must have
known that Donny would not view it favorably and would do exactly what he is
doing currently.

All the same they went ahead and decided to make the move at the end of May,
~6 months before the 'fit hits the shan'.

Why?

Their stock is, well, fairly ok. Jack seems to be doing alright. Monthly users
are flat-ish since 2015, but compared to FB, it's a bit of a wash.

