Twitter and Facebook are taking steps to limit the spread of a potentially misleading post by US President Donald Trump. While both platforms have since placed warning labels on the post, Twitter also made his post harder to share.
Twitter and Facebook Restrict Trump’s Post
On the night of the 2020 US presidential election, President Trump made a controversial post on Twitter and Facebook.
Trump made claims about the integrity of the election, and implied that the Democrats are trying to “steal the election.” He also stated that “votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed.”
Shortly after the Tweet was sent out, Twitter appended a label to it, saying that “some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”
The platform also hid the Tweet from users’ timelines, forcing you to make it visible by hitting the View button. Twitter took it a step further and even put limitations on the shareability of the post. Although you can’t reply, Like, or Retweet it, you can still send it out in a Quote Tweet.
Twitter Safety sent out a Tweet explaining its restrictions. The platform noted that it flagged the Tweet for “making a potentially misleading claim about an election,” and for violating its Civic Integrity Policy. This isn’t a surprise, as Twitter has already stated that it will flag Tweets that declare a premature election victory.
President Trump also took to Facebook to share the same post. Like Twitter, Facebook didn’t take too kindly to that kind of content.
Facebook quickly put a warning label on Trump’s post, reading “final results may be different from the initial vote counts, as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks after polls close.” Despite this, you can still Like, comment, and share the post across Facebook.
To get the point across even more, Facebook also placed a message at the top of Facebook and Instagram. The notications remind users that votes are still being counted, and that a winner still isn’t projected.
Once President Trump began making premature claims of victory, we started running notifications on Facebook and Instagram that votes are still being counted and a winner is not projected. We’re also automatically applying labels to both candidates’ posts with this information. pic.twitter.com/tuGGLJkwcy
— Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) November 4, 2020
Facebook has been preparing for Election Day mayhem for months in advance. Not only has the platform blocked political ads ahead of the election, but it also limited the reach of political groups on the platform.
Social media platforms have spent countless hours gearing up for Election Day. Each platform prepared an arsenal of weapons to fight misinformation, and thanks to Trump’s post, they’re finally getting a chance to flex them.
Now that mail-in ballot counts are slowly trickling in, we likely won’t see official results for days. This gives candidates and users an ample amount of time to post more misinformation, which social media is clearly ready to tackle.
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