Twitter defends decision to label Trump's tweets, says it is to provide 'context, not fact-checking'

After Twitter started labelling tweets that may be misleading, it drew mixed reactions from users and analysts.

Recently, the company had flagged US President Donald Trump’s tweet about protests in the country for glorifying violence.

Twitter responded to its critics and defended its action, saying it wants to promote conversations by limiting the “potential for likely harm”.

The company’s CEO laid out principles that reflect Twitter’s aspirations. He listed out five: Decrease potential for likely harm, decrease harmful bias & incentives, decrease reliance on content removal, increase diverse perspectives and to increase public accountability.

The company further added that its focus is to provide “context, not fact-checking”.

Ever since Twitter flagged off Trump’s tweet which claimed “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, the president has been open about his disapproval of their actions, while claiming to soon introduce a bill to tackle the power of social media companies.

Last week, a tweet by Trump about mail voting was flagged as “potentially misleading”, which a hyperlink which leads to the company’s fact-checking page.

The “shooting” remark by Trump was flagged with a notice about the violations in his tweet.

Many critics believe this is a good step, but not enough, for the company should clearly flag false information as exactly that.

US president has a long history with social media sites, he had earlier accused companies of favouring only liberal voice and stifling the conservative sentiment, after which talks of an executive order that limits the power of social media platforms.

Twitter had also announced that they do not intend to address all misinformation, but will only flag those that have the chances of causing the most potential harm.