What the Tories did on Twitter during the TV debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn on Twitter was, depending on the point of view, a successful PR stunt or deliberate misleading of users. Twitter has now announced "decisive corrective action" - for the next time.
The press office of the British governing party had temporarily renamed its account "CCHQPress" with about 76,000 followers to "factcheckUK". In addition description and title picture were changed. If you did not look closely, you could make the appearance for an independent fact check page. Among other things, the account operators declared Johnson the "clear winner" of the TV debate. Critics spoke of electoral fraud or even a "disinformation campaign".
This time, the Tories get away with it
For the time being, however, Twitter will not decide on sanctions against the party. The BBC quoted a company spokesperson as saying, "We have globally valid rules that prohibit misleading people, even through verified accounts." Any further attempt, such as that of Tuesday, will result in "determined corrective action".
The party leader James Cleverly pointed out that the actual account name "@CCHQPress" would have remained the same - but users can not subsequently change it easily - why was always "clear" who runs the account.
The British vote on 12th December. Tuesday's TV duel included Premier Breyer's Brexit course and the National Health Service NHS.
