Twitter accused Britain's governing Conservatives on Wednesday of misleading the public by rebranding themselves as fact-checkers during a live TV election debate, fuelling concerns about trust in politics.
The Tories also drew complaints from rival parties after renaming their press office Twitter account "factcheckUK" during Prime Minister Boris Johnson's clash with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday night.
The account fired off real-time rebuttals during the prime-time debate in what the Conservative party argued was a necessary corrective to Labour's "nonsense" claims.
But a Twitter spokeswoman warned that rules were in place to "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," she said.
As in other countries, social media is proving to be one of the key battlegrounds in Britain ahead of the December 12 election, but it can also be a conduit for rumour, misdirection and "fake news".
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, on Wednesday warned that "we all have a responsibility to speak accurately, to challenge falsehoods when we hear them, and to be careful to separate facts from opinion".
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