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Updated November 20th, 2019 at 18:14 IST

Twitter says British PM Johnson's Conservative Party misled public

Conservative party apparently misleads people on Nov 20 by changing the name of one of its verified Twitter accounts to make it look like a fact-checking site.

Reported by: Aanchal Nigam
Twitter
| Image:self
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The Prime Minister of United Kingdom Boris Johnson's Conservative party apparently misleaded people on November 20 by changing the name of one of its verified Twitter accounts to make it look like a fact-checking service during the televised election debate. The Conservative Campaign Headquarters press office account which is followed by nearly 76,000 Twitter users changed its name to 'factcheckUK' from 'CCHQPress'. Furthermore, the page also changed its theme to a white tick against a purple background. 

Read - British PM Boris Johnson Compares Rival Jeremy Corbyn To Joseph Stalin

Changed during the debate

Since the rebranding of the page took place while Johnson was debating the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn on live television, it supported the statements made by Britain's PM saying 'True' and while criticising the ones made by Corbyn. According to the Twitter spokesperson, Twitter is committed to facilitating healthy debate throughout the general elections in the UK. Twitter has global rules in place that prohibits behaviour which can mislead people including the accounts that are verified and have thousands of followers. The Spokesperson of the microblogging site also said that any further attempts to mislead the people by editing the names of the accounts will result in 'decisive corrective action'. 

Read - Boris Johnson Dials Trump, Urges Him To Lift Tariffs On Scotch Whisky

Criticised Conservative tactic

Along with Twitter, a genuine fact-checking charity, Full-fact also criticised the tactic used by the Conservatives. According to Full-fact, the change of names was 'inappropriate' and 'misleading' for the Conservative press office to rename their account to 'fact check the UK' during the debate and requested people to not mix the information shared on that page with independent fact-checking service. The Tory party also called the entire incident as 'sham' and according to them, it showed why Conservatives can not be trusted in the government. However, the Conservative Party chairman, James Cleverly defended their move saying they made it 'absolutely clear' that it was a Conservative Party website who is checking the claims. 

Read - UK PM Boris Johnson Apologises To The Conservatives

Read - Boris Johnson's Deal 'worse' Than Theresa May, Says Jeremy Corbyn

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Published November 20th, 2019 at 17:37 IST

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