Twitter stopped some users such as former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer from sharing The Federalist Co-Founder Sean Davis’s article on Tuesday outlining how the U.S. intelligence community knew about “Russian knowledge of Hillary Clinton’s anti-Trump collusion smear.”
When Spicer attempted to retweet Davis’s article on Tuesday, he and others met a notification warning them that “headlines don’t tell the full story.”
First time has happened. When I tried to RT @seanmdav story in l @FDRLST regarding the DNIs handwritten notes about Hillary’s effort to push the Russia narrative @Twitter put this up pic.twitter.com/AIoNvx1VSV
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) October 6, 2020
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1313559156700348416?s=20
According to Twitter, this warning is a “prompt experiment” that urges users to read an article before sharing it.
“The prompt appears if we notice that you haven’t tapped the link when you try to Retweet or Quote Tweet an article. If you’ve read it already, you can tap Retweet or Quote Tweet on the prompt,” a Twitter spokesperson told Fox News.
“Doesn’t matter what the content is, or who published. If it seems like you didn’t click on the link, and you’re in the test, we’ll ask you if you want to read it 1st,” clarified Brandon Borrman, Twitter’s vice president of global communications.
This kind of warning has affected other conservatives recently. Twitter censored Fox News Senior Meteorologist Janice Dean‘s article from July criticizing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s COVID-19 nursing home decisions for killing her in-laws on Thursday.
The headline in question reads “Janice Dean: COVID-19 killed my in-laws after Cuomo’s reckless New York nursing home policy.”
“Wow. A story I WROTE being promoted by ME is getting a warning from @Twitter before people can retweet. What a complete joke,” Dean tweeted.
“@Twitter please go troll someone else,” she added.
Here’s the story. @Twitter please go troll someone else. https://t.co/euuKg6oPUJ
— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) October 1, 2020
“I couldn’t believe that an article I wrote, promoted by me, was flagged by Twitter warning people ‘THEY SHOULD READ IT’ before retweeting,” Dean told The Federalist.
“I feel like there are so many other people Jack Dorsey and his Twitter police could be slapping warnings on or giving tickets to instead of someone who lost family members to COVID, thanks in part to the governor’s deadly policies,” she added.
