The Twitter in Chief has been flagged. For years, the president has been posting misleading information, innuendos and flat-out lies on his Twitter feed, but unlike many other users, his falsehoods have not been interrupted, even as the company has done just that when other people posted defamatory comments, obscenities and lies.
Now, however, after many months of spouting on Twitter about anyone who disagrees with him on anything at any level, the president has a warning notice on one of his postings, urging readers to check the facts.
Others faced nearly instant deletion of comments that were in any way false or obscene. The president's daily tirades, however, continued to take up e-space, and his supporters complained at great length about free speech violations when the company attached a fact check notice to a posting that alleged TV host Joe Scarborough may have been responsible for the death of one of his aides.
In addition, the president threatened to shut down Twitter if they edited or removed any of his postings.
How he might do that is an open question. He has no legal authority to close a company just for doing something he doesn't like. Moreover, it would cancel his own ability to mount a platform and exercise his First Amendment right to free speech.
Even so, while that right applies to all, it is not unlimited. There are laws against libel and slander, and the president himself has threatened libel suits against others who printed things he didn't like.
For the record, the death of Scarborough's aide happened many years ago, and was officially ruled an accident. The widowed husband wrote to Twitter asking that the president's posting be removed.
Meanwhile, the American free press continues to collect and print the president's lies and empty threats, along with details on how and why he's wrong.
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