The White House deleted a post on Twitter after the platform placed a fact check on it, two years after the company allowed the Democrat’s presidential campaign to go an entire election unchecked.
On Wednesday, the White House claimed credit for a raise in Social Security payments as a triumph of leadership.
“Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership,” the White House tweeted.
Twitter published a disclaimer on the post, however, clarifying that the scheduled raise in payments is due to record-high inflation, and a corresponding inflation-based adjustment that was attached to the checks in 1972.
“Seniors will receive a large Social Security benefit increase due to the annual cost of living adjustment, which is based on the inflation rate,” Twitter’s “context” label noted. “President Nixon in 1972 signed into law automatic benefit adjustments tied to the Consumer Price Index.”
The White House deleted the post in response, after the face check showed how the post amplified the administration’s own failures.
Multiple polls show economic issues, namely sky-high inflation, at the top of voters’ minds heading into the polls next week. According to the Department of Labor in October, the overall Consumer Price Index for September increased 8.2 percent since the year before. Americans paid 8.2 percent more for the same basket of goods in September than 12 months ago, with prices for food up more than 11 percent and energy up nearly 20 percent.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre claimed at a Wednesday press briefing that the tweet was published prematurely before she condemned “MAGA Republicans in Congress and their continued threat.”
“The tweet was not complete,” she said.
Twitter’s fact check disclaimer follows new leadership at the Silicon Valley tech giant, ushering in a potential cascade of changes to the website’s content moderation policies. Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla, bought the company and became its sole director last week after a months-long court battle to complete the purchase.
While Musk has branded his takeover of the company as a crusade to open up the platform as a haven for free speech, skepticism ensued Wednesday after the new Twitter chief sought advice from a left-wing activist with a history of championing fake news and offered support for one of the app’s corporate censors.
In the late hours of Tuesday night, Musk named individuals advising him on content moderation, including Rashad Robinson, president of the leftist group Color of Change. Robinson repeatedly tweeted support for “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett after the disgraced celebrity falsely claimed to be the victim of a racist and homophobic hate crime.
[READ: Elon Musk Taps Jussie Smollett Hoaxer For Twitter Censorship Advice]
Musk also defended Twitter’s chief of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth. Roth presided over the company’s decision to suppress the bombshell New York Post stories surrounding Hunter Biden in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign.