Twitter, Facebook struggle to contain spread of Trump's misinformation about US voting

As US President Donald Trump and his allies posted information about voting and even falsely claimed victory, social media companies, including Twitter and Facebook, warned users that the presidential election had yet to be decided. The various internet platforms have been imposing their much-touted rules on handling election misinformation and premature claims of victory. However, it is still not clear whether the disclaimers and fact-checks are curbing the circulation of baseless claims. 

As false and unfounded claims have evolved over the course of Election Day, critics believe that in environment explicitly built to promote instant sharing and viral posts, disclaimers do not cut it. It was noted that initially, Trump had said that he had “won” even though vote counting is still ongoing. Then the US President even said that unanticipated mail-in votes were appearing out of nowhere, but in fact, they were long expected. 

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Throughout the course of the day, Trump and his supporters have repeatedly tried to flood the internet with unfounded allegations of fraud. Twitter even marked three of Trump’s latest tweets, including the one making a false claim about “surprise ballot dumps,” as potentially “misleading about an election or other civic process”. The micro-blogging website also tagged statements by Trump’s son Eric and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany that claimed victory in Pennsylvania with the disclaimer that “official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted”. 

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Twitter restricts Trump’s post 

Facebook, on the other hand, marked multiple posts from the President because votes were still being counted. Even if the disclaimers are curbing the spread of misinformation they still have not stopped other media outlets from amplifying Trump’s comments or his claims from spreading. Social media companies have been under scrutiny over how the police rapidly spreading false information and election-related abuses of their platforms. Before Election Day, both platforms had vowed action on posts by candidates trying to declare early victory. 

The attempts at policing those declarations began early on Wednesday when Twitter hid a Trump tweet that claimed: “we are BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election”. Twitter restricted the post and instead displayed the message "Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process”. The micro-blogging website had said that it had suspended the accounts for violating its policy against the “coordination” by posting content while engaging in some automated behaviour.

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