We all knew the 2020 election was going to be a long and messy battle and news outlets and social media platforms are doing the best they can with the information they have to keep America updated with accurate information.
Twitter’s main concern leading up to Election Day was having one candidate or another attempting to claim the victory prematurely in the race for the White House. The social media giant vowed to prevent any misinformation from making its way to the public.
President Donald Trump is bold and brazen, both of these traits are why he has such loyal supporters and equally fierce haters. So of course when he started tweeting about election results, Twitter quickly took action against him.
At least five of President Donald Trump’s tweets about election results—on Wednesday morning alone—were flagged as false or misleading by Twitter.
Twitter has flagged multiple tweets from the president over the course of just 12 hours between midnight on Election Night and the morning of November 4. Nearly all of the tweets flagged by the social media company’s moderators make baseless claims about voter fraud and mail-in ballots. One Trump tweet labeled by Twitter as false or misleading accuses Democratic Party officials of taking away the president’s lead in states by making ballots “magically disappear.”
That one and four others are still accessible with a click, but users first see the same message from Twitter’s moderators: “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”
They are working hard to make up 500,000 vote advantage in Pennsylvania disappear — ASAP. Likewise, Michigan and others!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
Often times Twitter flags tweets that have been reported by other users. When reporting a tweet you must factor in if it is “misleading about a political election or other civic event.” Twitter users can check off several boxes within that category including, “It has false information about how to vote or how to register to vote” or if it “intends to suppress or intimidate someone from voting or participating in a census.”
