White House deletes tweet after Twitter adds 'context' note

The White House deleted a Twitter post on Wednesday touting an increase in Social Security benefits for seniors after the social media platform added a “context” note pointing out that the increase was tied to a 1972 law requiring automatic increases based on cost of living changes.

“Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership,” read the tweet, which was posted to the official White House account at 4:45 p.m. on Nov. 1. On Wednesday, the tweet no longer appeared on the White House’s feed.

The White House did not originally respond to a request for comment on the “context” earlier Wednesday, but when POLITICO followed up after the tweet was deleted, a White House official said “the point was incomplete” in the deleted post. The official also directed POLITICO to a longer statement from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre last month.

Jean-Pierre further elaborated on the deleted tweet during a press briefing Wednesday, again pointing to the earlier statement from the White House.

“Look, the tweet was not complete. Usually when we put out a tweet we post it with context, and it did not have that context,” Jean-Pierre said. "So in the past we’ve pointed out that for the first time in over a decade seniors’ Medicare premiums will decrease even as their Social Security checks increase. That’s a little bit of context that was not included.”

The context annotation, which was visible Wednesday morning, noted that the record increase the tweet referred to was tied to inflation, which reached its highest point in 40 years in June.

“Seniors will receive a large Social Security benefit increase due to the annual cost of living adjustment, which is based on the inflation rate,” the annotation said, linking to a history of the law on the official Social Security Administration website.

According to a description under the annotation, “Context is written by people who use Twitter, and appears when rated helpful by others.”

Myah Ward contributed to this report.