Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took pains to distance his company from Twitter and its fight with US President Donald Trump, as the White House moved to scrap a law protecting social media companies.

KEY POINTS

• President Trump accuses social media businesses of bias against conservatives
• He stepped up his attack on Twitter after the company put a fact-checking label on two of his tweets about mail-in ballots
• Mr Zuckerberg states Facebook policy differs from that of Twitter
• Facebook applies labels to misleading posts, but exempts posts by politicians

GOP Trump, who Accuses Social Media firms of bias against conservatives, stepped up his attacks on Twitter after the company put a fact-checking label on two of his tweets about mail-in ballots on Tuesday for the first time.

"We have a different policy I think than Twitter on this," Zuckerberg told Fox News, one of Trump's preferred news channels.

Both sites take down content that violates their terms of service, but Facebook's approach, he said, has "distinguished us from some of the other tech companies in terms of being stronger on free expression and giving people a voice."

While Facebook does apply labels to misleading posts, it exempts from review posts by politicians, a decision that some lawmakers and presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden say helps lies to flourish online.

Unlike Twitter, Facebook outsources its fact checking to media partners and says it takes no stance itself. (Disclosure: our content partner, Reuters is one of Facebook's fact-checking partners and receives compensation through the program.)

The split with Twitter comes despite Zuckerberg's more aggressive posture against misinformation in recent months, including pledges to wipe from Facebook's apps any misleading posts about the novel coronavirus which could cause physical harm.

Facebook took down a coronavirus-related post from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in March. It also explicitly bans content that misrepresents methods for voting or voter registration "regardless of who it's coming from."

Mr Zuckerberg said Trump's comments on Tuesday did not hit Facebook's bar to be considered in violation of its voter suppression rules.

Trump had posted unsubstantiated claims on both Twitter and Facebook saying the governor of California was sending mail-in ballots to anyone living in the state, "no matter who they are or how they got there," although ballots are only sent to registered voters.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Trump's claims "may mislead people into thinking they don't need to register to get a ballot" and hit back at the White House for pinning the decision on a mid-level Twitter staffer.

A Twitter spokeswoman said that senior executives, including Dorsey, had approved the decision to label Trump's tweets.

Twitter, for its part, has at times sought to differentiate itself from Facebook. Last year, it announced a political advertising ban just as criticism of Mark Zuckerberg's fact-checking exemption was reaching a fever pitch.

Trump remains one of Facebook's top political spenders, although campaign ads comprise a tiny slice of its total revenue.

Nu Wexler, a former spokesman for both companies, said Twitter's political ads decision gave it more freedom to manoeuvre now. Trump's threats against the platform, he said, amounted to little more than "Washington kabuki theatre."

"Trump has much less leverage over Twitter than other companies. Twitter don't [sic] sell political ads, they're not big enough for an antitrust threat and he's clearly hooked on the platform," Wexler tweeted.

Via our content partners at Reuters. Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford and Katie Paul. Editing by Dan Grebler and Grant McCool.

This article was published by Platform Executive, the home of the platform economy.