Twitter, Facebook Scramble to Keep Up With False Claims as Votes Continue to Be Counted

Election Day has come and gone, but the results of the battle for the presidency of the U.S. are still up in the air, keeping Twitter and Facebook on their toes. As previously reported, President Donald Trump posted the following message to Facebook at 12:47 a.m. ET and tweeted it two minutes later: “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!” https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1323864823680126977 Twitter placed a label over the tweet, reading, “Some or all of the content shared in this tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process,” and it also prevented other Twitter users from replying to it or retweeting it, along with removing the tweet’s engagement metrics. Twitter Safety tweeted, “We placed a warning on a tweet from @realDonaldTrump for making a potentially misleading claim about an election. This action is in line with our Civic Integrity Policy.” https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1323868590047744000 Facebook did not remove or fact-check Trump’s post, but it did place a label underneath it, reading, “Final results may be different from initial vote counts, as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks,” citing the Bipartisan Policy Center. Even before Trump’s brush with the two social networks, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) tweeted at 12:05 a.m. ET, “Thank you for this historic victory, North Carolina! Looking forward to SIX MORE YEARS of fighting for you and your family in the U.S. Senate. #ncsen #ncpol.” His tweet was not hidden, but Twitter added a label cautioning, “Official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted.” https://twitter.com/ThomTillis/status/1323853951394074629?s=20 Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair Ben Wikler drew Twitter’s ire with a tweet at 7:21 a.m. ET Wednesday reading, “Green Bay and Kenosha results are in. (Former Vice President Joe Biden) is now up in Wisconsin by roughly 20,600 votes. That number could wobble a bit, but there's no realistic path for Trump to pull ahead. Biden has won more votes any prez candidate in WI history. Folks: Joe Biden just won Wisconsin.” https://twitter.com/benwikler/status/1323963606992605184 Twitter applied the same label to Wikler’s tweet as it did to Trump’s. Wikler had not posted on Facebook since Oct. 9. Trump fired off another tweet at 10:04 a.m. ET and Facebook post one minute later that also likely violate both platforms’ guidelines. He wrote, “Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong!” https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324004491612618752 Twitter and Facebook took the same actions as they did on Trump’s earlier tweet and post. At 10:17 a.m., Trump tweeted, “How come every time they count Mail-In ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?” Twitter opted not to take action on this tweet. Facebook, meanwhile, attached a label to the bottom of Trump’s identical post, citing the Bipartisan Policy Center and reading, “As expected, election results will take longer this year. Millions of people across the U.S. voted by mail, and mail ballots take longer to count.” The president went all-uppercase at 10:35 a.m., tweeting, “WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?” on a quote tweet of blogger Matt Walsh’s tweet, which shared an update from Travis County GOP chair and podcaster Matt Mackowiak saying that Biden got all 128,000 of the votes in an update from Michigan. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324012341458075648 Twitter did not hide Mackowiak’s tweet, but it did add a label to the top of it, reading, “Some or all of the content in this tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.” The tweets by Walsh and Trump were treated the same way as the others detailed above that were hidden by labels. Twitter appears to be erring on the side of caution: A tweet from pollster Matt McDermott at 11:31 a.m.—which said the elections commission administrator from Wisconsin told NBC News that all of the ballots were counted, and that Biden won the state by 20,697 votes—received the same treatment as Tillis’ tweet mentioned above, even though NBC News tweeted the same information at 11:50 a.m. and no action was taken. https://twitter.com/mattmfm/status/1324026497536004098 https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1324031360093327363 Another tweet from Trump was hidden behind a label with the message, “Some or all of the content in this tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.” Trump tweeted at 12:01 p.m., “They are working hard to make up 500,000 vote advantage in Pennsylvania disappear — ASAP. Likewise, Michigan and others!” https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324033983882166272 Facebook did not hide Trump’s identical post two minutes later, but the social network affixed a label to the bottom, reading, “Votes are being counted. The winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election has not been projected. After a few quiet hours, Trump sent out a two-part tweet at 4:56 p.m., and Twitter placed a message under the first part of the tweet informing users, “Official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted,” and hiding the second part altogether behind, “Some or all of the content in this tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.” https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324108200141082624 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324108206801563650 The first part read, “We have claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (which won’t allow legal observers) the State of Georgia, and the State of North Carolina, each one of which has a BIG Trump lead. Additionally, we hereby claim the State of Michigan if, in fact,…..” And the second part read, “…..there was a large number of secretly dumped ballots as has been widely reported!” Trump condensed the same claims into one Facebook post, which the social network affixed a label to the bottom of, reading, “Final results may be different from initial vote counts, as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks,” citing the Bipartisan Policy Center. We will continue updating this post as needed.