Nigel Farage hits out at Adam Boulton after Brexit claim fact-checked
Broadcaster Adam Boulton has been fact-checked by Twitter users for claiming that “no major party” tried to overturn the results of the Brexit referendum.
A tweet sent by the former Sky News staple presenter and TalkTV panellist was marked by the site’s readers, who added “context” to his post.
And Nigel Farage picked up on the mistake this afternoon, with the former Brexit Party leader calling out the presenter in front of his followers.
Mr Boulton’s post was given context by Community Notes, a Twitter scheme that empowers users to add context to any tweets deemed potentially misleading.
He claimed it was “fake news” that people in the UK “denied Brexit”, and added that “no major party tried to overturn [the results]”.
But context from Community Notes added that one party, the Liberal Democrats did, in fact run a concerted bid to cancel the vote results in 2019.
And it added that the Labour Party had floated holding a second referendum to confirm the results which, if it had found popular opposition to the initial vote, would have scuppered the UK’s departure from the EU.
The context stated: “At the 2019 UK general election the Liberal Democrats pledged to reverse the Brexit decision.
“The Labour party also sought to halt Brexit by holding a second referendum.”
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Realising the added comment, Mr Farage said: “Adam was fact-checked by Twitter!”
Contextual additions are pinned to posts when users rate and deem them helpful enough, and come with links to sources used as their basis.
Twitter stresses that executives or moderators have no role in choosing when the notes are displayed.
While Mr Farage was eager to call out his fellow broadcaster’s “fact-check”, his tweets have previously received contextual additions.
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In January this year, the GB News presenter claimed in a tweet that Britons were “about to have mass produced insects put into our food”.
He then stated that the “European Commission have approved it”, before adding: “I don’t want locusts for my breakfast!”
Twitter users quickly fact-checked his claims, mentioning that, as the UK is no-longer a member state, the country is “not subject to new decisions made by the EU Commission”.
The context added that the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) is responsible for British regulations.
And finally, it alerted users to the fact that the EU Commission’s decision “requires labelling of all items containing Novel Foods”, meaning that people wouldn’t eat insect-based foods without their choosing.
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