September 12, 2020

Twitter Just Slapped Trump With Another Violation for Spreading Election Disinformation

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

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Twitter put a warning on one of President Trump’s tweets on Saturday morning, in which he encouraged followers to vote twice in North Carolina, which is illegal.

In his tweet, Trump urged people voting by mail in North Carolina to show up to polling sites to make sure that their vote was being counted, and if it wasn’t, to vote again in person. Election officials have specifically warned against doing this, saying that it could cause unnecessarily long lines at polling stations.

This wasn’t the first time the president has encouraged voter fraud: He did the same thing earlier this month, telling supporters in North Carolina to vote twice (both by mail and in-person). “Let them send it in, and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote,” Trump said. “If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote,” 

Users trying to view the tweet on Saturday were first met with a warning from Twitter explaining that the election misinformation tweet is against Twitter’s civic and election integrity rules:

This is only the latest instance of Twitter trying to curb misinformation spread by the President. Twitter put the same warning on a Trump tweet last month in which he said drop boxes for mail-in votes could lead to election fraud. Facebook also said that videos of Trump encouraging people in North Carolina to vote twice would be taken down because the company found them to be in violation of its policies against voter fraud.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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