Twitter labeled a Donald Trump post as potentially
misleading while social media platforms kept on high alert against
election misinformation early Wednesday, with the outcome of the US
presidential vote yet to be called.
Aiming to avoid problems that occurred in the 2016 campaign,
Facebook, Twitter, and Google-owned YouTube have all implemented
policies aimed at heading off the spread of false information
designed to sway the outcome of this year’s poll.
Twitter covered the Trump tweet with a notice that it contained
information that was potentially misleading, requiring people to
click through to see an unfounded claim of an effort to “steal” the
election and deprive the president of an election victory.
Trump posted the same message on his Facebook page, where it was
tagged with a disclaimer that ballot counting remained in progress,
and a link to reliable information about the election.
“We applied labels to two posts from President Donald J. Trump
this evening in accordance with the policies we shared ahead of
Election Day,” Facebook said.
Facebook earlier said it had a command center watching the
platform and ready to react to misinformation during the vote.
“Our Election Operations Center will continue m onitoring a
range of issues in real-time,” said a Facebook statement posted on
Twitter.
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Nonprofit activism group Avaaz said its “war room” was also
keeping tabs on Facebook and reported “last-ditch” Spanish-language
misinformation, including posts about the prospects of a
post-election coup or civil war.
“Disinformation is dividing and disenfranchising the American
people,” said Avaaz program director Fadi Quran.
The Election Integrity Partnership research coalition said a
Google search for swing states turned up a YouTube video channel
that was displaying a fake live feed of election results.
“Thousands of people may have been duped into streaming a fake
YouTube video purporting to show election night results,” the
researchers said in a post.
YouTube removed the video.
Some groups at Facebook were being used to share stories of
going to polling places without face masks to “scare liberals
away,” according to a post by Kayla Gogarty of nonprofit watchdog
group Media Matters.
And a #stopthesteal hashtag was being used on social media posts
tailored to cast doubt on the voting process.
Facebook stressed that it would place warning labels on any
posts which sought to claim victory prematurely.
– Loopholes and glitches –
Along with other social platforms, the company has promised to
stem misinformation around the election, including premature claims
of victory, seeking to avoid a repeat of 2016 manipulation
efforts.
Over past days, Facebook and Twitter added disclaimers to Trump
posts calling into question the integrity of mail-in ballots.
The Trump post in question on Twitter said a slow vote count in
battleground state Pennsylvania could lead to “rampant and
unchecked cheating.”
“It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be
done!” he tweeted.
Twitter last month updated its “civic integrity policy” aiming
to prevent efforts to manipulate or interfere in elections. That
calls for actions against false claims for victory or any
incitement to violence.
YouTube has also sought to limit the sharing of videos with
election misinformation. Last month it began adding information
panels to videos about voting by mail.
Mail-in voting was added to a shortlist of topics that YouTube
considers prone to posts containing falsehoods, such as Covid-19
and landing on the Moon, according to the Google-owned
video-sharing platform.
The panel appears under such videos regardless of who is
speaking or who uploads them, according to YouTube.
Some activists noted that efforts by social platforms to curb
the spread of false information were being hurt by loopholes and
glitches.
Avaaz said it has found multiple examples of unverified election
claims on Facebook in recent days.
Some comments said the “left” was planning a “coup” if Trump won
the vote, while others argued without any factual basis that Trump
would need to win Pennsylvania by four to five points “to overcome
voter fraud,” according to Avaaz.
Facebook acknowledged this week that some political ads banned
for containing misleading information were resurfacing, with
political groups copying the same content for new messages to slip
through filters.
-AFP