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The latest action occurred when a tweet from the president alleged irregularities on the ballot during the vote-counting process.
FILE: President of the United States, Donald Trump. Image: AFP
WASHINGTON – Twitter labeled two of President Donald Trump’s tweets as misleading on Wednesday when a razor-sharp US election battle spilled onto social media.
The latest action occurred when a tweet from the president alleged irregularities on the ballot during the vote-counting process.
Trump alleged that there had been “surprise ballot dumps” in the states where he had led Democrat Joe Biden in the race for the White House.
Last night he was leading, often solidly, in many key states, in almost all cases controlled and controlled by the Democrats. Then one by one, they began to magically disappear as the surprise dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely and historically wrong!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
Twitter’s action made comments less visible and users looking to read the post had to click a warning that “some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and could be misleading.”
A Twitter spokesperson said the action was taken “in line with our Civic Integrity Policy” and would “significantly restrict interactions” with the tweet.
Similar action was taken against an earlier tweet from the president that suggested the Democratic candidate was seeking to “steal” the election.
We are in BIG time, but they are trying to STEAL the election. We will never let them do it. No votes can be cast after the polls are closed!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
The Twitter spokesperson said it took action on a number of other comments, including claims of premature victory by a North Carolina Republican Senate candidate and a comment prematurely claiming that Biden had won Wisconsin.
“As votes are still being counted across the country, our teams continue to take enforcement action on Tweets declaring victory prematurely or containing misleading information about the election in general,” Twitter said.
Facebook also added disclaimers to Trump’s posts as social platforms struggled to deliver on their promise to root out election misinformation.
FIGHT AGAINST BAD INFORMATION
Facebook has activated a command center that monitors the platform and is ready to react to misinformation during voting.
“Our Election Operations Center will continue to monitor a variety of issues in real time,” said a statement from Facebook.
The nonprofit activism group Avaaz said its “war room” was also monitoring Facebook and reported “last resort” disinformation in Spanish, including posts about the prospects for a post-election coup or civil war.
The Election Integrity Partnership research coalition said a Google search of undecided states turned up a YouTube video channel showing a fake live feed of the election results.
“Thousands of people may have been tricked into posting a fake YouTube video purporting to show election night results,” investigators said in a post.
YouTube removed the video.
Some Facebook groups were being used to share stories of going to the polls without masks to “scare the liberals,” according to a post by Kayla Gogarty of the nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters.
And a #stopthesteal hashtag was being used in social media posts designed to cast doubt on the voting process.
Facebook stressed that it would place warning labels on any post that sought to claim victory prematurely.
The platforms have pledged to intensify scrutiny of false electoral information, including premature claims of victory, seeking to avoid a repeat of the 2016 manipulation efforts.
In recent days, Facebook and Twitter added disclaimers to Trump’s posts that questioned the integrity of the mail-in ballots.
Twitter last month updated its policy to prevent efforts to manipulate or interfere with the elections. That requires action against false claims of victory or any incitement to violence.
YouTube has also sought to limit the sharing of videos with electoral disinformation. Last month, it began adding information panels to videos about voting by mail.
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