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Twitter Inc late Monday pointed to a tweet by US President Donald Trump, calling the Supreme Court’s decision to vote in Pennsylvania “very dangerous.”
People holding mobile phones are silhouetted against a background projected with the Twitter logo in this illustrated image taken in Warsaw on September 27, 2013. REUTERS / Kacper Pempel / Illustration / Archives
REUTERS: Twitter and Facebook late Monday flagged posts by President Donald Trump claiming that a US Supreme Court decision on voting by mail in Pennsylvania would lead to “rampant” fraud and was “very dangerous.”
Twitter hid the president’s tweet, sent the day before the US presidential election, behind a tag that said the content was “disputed” and “could be misleading.”
Trump and his Republican allies have repeatedly said, without evidence, that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud, although election experts say that is rare in American elections. Trump’s tweet also said the Supreme Court decision “would provoke violence in the streets.”
Social media companies are under pressure to curb misinformation on their platforms ahead of the US elections. Twitter has tagged or warned Trump’s tweets multiple times this year for violating its rules.
Twitter also prevented users from retweeting or replying to the post, allowing only ‘quote tweets’. He said that tweets will also not be algorithmically recommended by their systems.
The Election Integrity Partnership, which tweeted that Twitter took action about 40 minutes after Trump’s tweet was sent, said it would be “prudent” to pick up the pace.
“Twitter action effectively stopped the spread of the tweet. However, it had already been retweeted more than 55,000 times and bookmarked 126,000 times. This is as much or more reach than most other tweets posted by @realDonaldTrump today.” the research group tweeted.
Last week, the US Supreme Court granted extended deadlines for receiving ballots by mail in Tuesday’s elections in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, states critical to Trump’s reelection chances.
The decision left standing a Pennsylvania superior court ruling that allows mail-in ballots postmarked on Election Day and received up to three days later to be counted.
Facebook added a disclaimer to Trump’s post, which had been shared 4,200 times, saying that voting by mail and voting in person has a “record of trustworthiness” in the United States, and voter fraud is extremely rare.
Facebook also tagged a Fox News video posted by Trump in which he spoke of “cheating” in Pennsylvania with the same message.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in Birmingham, England Kanishka Singh and Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru; Edited by Leslie Adler and Lincoln Feast.)
