INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Media playback is unsupported on your deviceMedia captionThe Tory press office was rebranded as "factcheckUK" for Tuesday's live TV
debateSocial networking site Twitter has said the Conservative Party misled the public when it rebranded one of its Twitter accounts.The
@CCHQPress account - the Tory press office - was renamed "factcheckUK" for Tuesday's live TV debate involving Boris Johnson and Jeremy
Corbyn.After the debate, the account reverted to its original branding.Twitter said it would take "decisive corrective action" if a similar
stunt was attempted again.But the firm does not appear to have taken any action over this particular incident."Twitter is committed to
facilitating healthy debate throughout the UK general election," a spokesperson said
"We have global rules in place that prohibit behaviour that can mislead people, including those with verified accounts
Any further attempts to mislead people by editing verified profile information - in a manner seen during the UK Election Debate - will
result in decisive corrective action."The Tories were earlier criticised by genuine fact-checking agency Full Fact, which said in a
statement: "It is inappropriate and misleading for the Conservative press office to rename their twitter account 'factcheckUK' during this
debate."Please do not mistake it for an independent fact checking service such as FullFact, FactCheck or FactCheckNI." Conservative Party
chairman James Cleverly defended the rebranding.He told TheIndianSubcontinent Newsnight: "The Twitter handle of the CCHQ press office
remained CCHQPress, so it's clear the nature of the site." Mr Cleverly added the decision to rebrand the account would have been made by the
party's digital team, which he said operated within his remit
He said he was "absolutely comfortable" with the party "calling out when the Labour Party put what they know to be complete fabrications in
Reacting to the decision, the Labour Party tweeted: "The Conservatives' laughable attempt to dupe those watching the #ITVDebate by renaming
their twitter account shows you can't trust a word they say." The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, said the ploy was "straight out of Donald
Trump or Putin's playbook", adding the Tories were "deliberately misleading the public".Twitter has policies regarding deceptive behaviour
The company said it can remove an account’s “verified” status if the account owner is said to be “intentionally misleading people on
Twitter by changing one's display name or bio”
Other users on the platform subsequently changed their display names to mock the move
Among them, writer Charlie Brooker, who tweeted: “We have always been at war with Eastasia”, a reference to George Orwell’s dystopian
novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four.Image copyrightJONATHAN HORDLE / ITVThis latest controversial move on social media comes less than a month after
the Conservative Party was criticised for posting a "doctored" video involving Labour's Sir Kier Starmer, in which the shadow Brexit
secretary was made to look as if he met a question, posed by ITV's Piers Morgan, with silence.Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly
said the video, since taken down, was meant to be "light-hearted"
The party later posted an extended version of the interview.Full Fact, which is a charity supported by donations from the likes of Google,
described the incident as "irresponsible"
