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Facebook and Twitter have implemented emergency measures to counter Donald Trump’s false claims of victory on their social media, putting them in more direct conflict with the US president than ever.
The two tech platforms had announced plans in the run-up to the election to counter misinformation about the vote, as well as premature claims of victory, and overnight both companies stuck to the plan.
Facebook notably dropped the euphemistic phrase that had previously accompanied its ads, which discussed the risk that “candidates” could falsely claim a victory.
A company spokesperson quoted Trump by name in explaining his decision, saying: “Once President Trump started making premature claims of victory, we began posting notifications on Facebook and Instagram that the votes are still being counted and no winner is projected. We also automatically tag both candidates’ posts with this information. “
When it came to reacting to individual posts, both platforms faced criticism for their responses. In late-night posts on Twitter and Facebook, Trump declared: “We are in a 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 close! “That post was followed by a second one that said,” I will make a statement tonight. A BIG GAIN! “
Facebook initially tagged the first post with a simple box advising readers to “watch the latest updates on the 2020 US elections.” More than 30 minutes after its publication, the company updated its warning to note that “the final results may be different from the initial vote counts, as the vote count will continue for days or weeks.” At the time, the post had more than 100,000 reactions.
Twitter restricted distribution on the first post, preventing it from being retweeted or replied to, and added a note saying the content “is in dispute and could be misleading about an election or other civic process.” A spokesperson said the warning was “for making a potentially misleading claim about an election. This action is in line with our civic integrity policy ”.
No platform took specific action against the second post that said “a HUGE PROFIT!” Twitter said the inaction was due to it being unclear what specifically was being referenced. While the position might have been a premature claim to victory in the national race, it could easily be interpreted as a legitimate expression of pleasure at winning a state like Florida, which had been declared several hours earlier.
On Wednesday morning, more labels were unfolded as Trump continued to launch false accusations of electoral negligence. Twitter put out a warning about two tweets, one stating that “surprise ballot dumps” were influencing the election, and another claiming they “are working hard to regain the 500,000 vote lead in disappearing Pennsylvania.” Facebook added tags to the same posts, countering Trump’s claims with the statement “Election officials follow strict rules when it comes to counting, handling and reporting ballots.”
Both platforms were criticized for continued delay in enforcing their policies, however, with gaps of up to half an hour between a post and its corrective tag, allowing hundreds of thousands of forwarding and many more views of uncorrected posts.
Tech platforms remain in pick mode while counts continue. Political ads are now indefinitely suspended on Facebook and Google, while Twitter has not allowed them since October 2019.
Google has blocked all advertisements “referring to candidates, the election or its outcome, as an unprecedented number of votes will be counted after Election Day this year.” According to Axios, the ban should be expected to last at least next week, and possibly longer if the results remain controversial.
