Trump threatens Twitter over fact checks: What's next?

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Twitter has taken the unprecedented step of adding fact-check warnings to two of President Donald Trump’s tweets that falsely called mail-in ballots “substantially fraudulent” and predicted a “Rigged Election.” On Wednesday, the president threatened to impose new regulation on social media companies or even to “close them down."

But Twitter’s move and Trump’s reaction raise a host of questions, including why Twitter acted now, how it decides when to use such warnings and what its newly assumed role means for the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

QUESTION: Twitter has resisted taking action on Trump's tweets for years, despite the president's history of spreading misinformation and abuse on the platform. What changed?

ANSWER: Trump has pushed Twitter's boundaries for years, using it to attack rivals, speak to his base and simply vent. Until Tuesday, he had never faced sanctions — though other world leaders had.

But things started to change earlier this year when coronavirus misinformation began to spread. Twitter began flagging tweets that spread disputed or misleading claims about the virus with “get the facts” links to more information, including news stories and fact checks.

Twitter said it would be adding such warnings to other tweets that could confuse users. Tweets deemed “harmful” would be removed altogether. Trump’s vote-by-mail tweets were the first non-pandemic ones Twitter flagged this way.

Those tweets met specific Twitter criteria for misinformation on certain topics, including the coronavirus, how to vote in elections and the census. There is no such policy for other topics. Earlier Trump tweets about Joe Scarborough, which baselessly suggested the television host and former GOP congressman had...