Twitter Labels 'Misleading' Trump Tweet About Election Results The president's post about his opponents 'trying to STEAL the election' has been slapped with a warning 'for making a potentially misleading claim about the election,' Twitter says.
By Stephanie Mlot •
This story originally appeared on PCMag
Twitter today slapped a warning label on yet another one of Donald Trump's tweets for spreading misinformation about the US election.
As votes were still being counted through the night in several states, the president on Wednesday morning claimed his campaign for re-election was "up big," and that Democratic opponent Joe Biden is trying to "steal" the race.
"We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the election," Trump tweeted, providing no evidence to back his claim. "We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed!" Twitter was quick to flag the post "for making a potentially misleading claim about the election" — a move the company says is in line with its civic integrity policy.
The social network has been clamping down on the spread of misinformation this year, promising to more aggressively label and hide inaccurate election-related posts, ban political ads, provide more context to trending items and enhance the security of high-profile accounts.
Now through Inauguration Day, Twitter will label some tweets that "make claims about election results"—prioritizing the presidential ticket and other highly contested races "where there may be significant issues with misleading information," the company announced on Tuesday. All accounts with US 2020 candidate labels are eligible for labeling, as are US-based accounts with more than 100,000 followers and tweets that have more than 25,000 likes, quote tweets, or retweets.
Remember, however, that labeled posts are hidden, not deleted; simply click "View" next to the warning to see the original tweet. Twitter also provides a link to learn more about its 2020 election security efforts. A handful of news outlets — ABC News, Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Decision Desk HQ, Fox News, National Election Pool, NBC News, Reuters — are exempt from Twitter's stamp of disapproval.
Facebook followed suit, announcing on Wednesday morning that "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." The social media giant is also automatically applying labels to both candidates' posts suggesting an early win.
