Donald Trump accuses Twitter of stifling free speech after it adds 'fact check' label to his tweet

A tweet by Donald Trump has been given a fact check label for the first time, as Twitter warned readers the US president's claims about mail-in ballots were false and had been debunked by fact checkers.

Mr Trump tweeted: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people".

Under the tweet, Twitter added a blue exclamation mark notification which prompted the president's 80 million followers to "get the facts about mail-in ballots" and directed them to a page with news articles and information from fact-checkers about the claims.

Mr Trump hit back, accusing Twitter of "interfering" in the US election. "@Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election," he tweeted, adding that "Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!"

Mr Trump's election campaign manager, Brad Parscale said: "We always knew that Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to obstruct and interfere with President Trump getting his message through to voters.

"Partnering with the biased fake news media ‘fact checkers’ is only a smoke screen Twitter is using to try to lend their obvious political tactics some false credibility. There are many reasons the Trump campaign pulled all our advertising from Twitter months ago, and their clear political bias is one of them.“

Under Mr Trump's tweets, the social media company linked to a page fact checking Mr Trump's claims, with the headline: "Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud".

Twitter then goes on to list bullet points stating that Mr Trump falsely claimed that mail-in voting ballots would lead to "a Rigged Election."

"Trump falsely claimed that California will send mail-in ballots to 'anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there'. In fact, only registered voters will receive ballots", one bullet point stated.

Twitter also pointed out that while Mr Trump had targeted California, mail-in ballots are already used in some states, including Oregon, Utah and Nebraska.

The president has repeatedly made claims that postal voting would open the presidential election up to abuse, including in states such as California and Michigan. He claimed in tweets earlier in the day that the mail ballots would be "substantially fraudulent" and result in a "rigged election."

He also singled out the governor of California - a Democrat - over the issue. California is the most populous state in the US and voted for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, in the 2016 election.

Twitter confirmed this was the first time it had applied a label to a tweet by the president under its new "misleading information" policy, introduced earlier in the month.