Twitter partially masked, early Wednesday, November 4 (Paris time), a message from donald trump in which he claims to be widely leading the election – the count of which is still ongoing -, and accuses the Democratic Party of“Try to STEAL the election”. “We will never let them do it”, wrote the outgoing president in a message announcing that he will make a public statement soon.
On Facebook, where the same message was posted by Donald Trump, his text is freely accessible, but has been accompanied by a mention specifying that “The final results may differ from the first estimates, the counting may continue for several days or weeks”.
Twitter has significantly tightened its moderation rules for the current US presidential election. The social network had warned that the messages claiming the victory of a camp before a final count, just like the messages which “Undermine confidence in the electoral process”, would be blocked or limited. Twitter has a policy of never removing messages from the President of the United States, considering them to be of public interest; Donald Trump’s tweet has therefore been hidden, and can only be read after clicking on a warning, and it cannot be shared.
Facebook, for its part, said on Wednesday that if victory claims remained banned nationally, it would not delete messages claiming victory in a particular state. This change could have important consequences, especially in the case where victory depends on a single state – such as Pennsylvania, a hotly contested state, where the final tally should take time, and whose twenty votes in the electoral college could make the difference.
“We placed a warning on a message from Donald Trump that made potentially misleading statements about the election”, Twitter explained soon after.
The outgoing president’s tweet suffered this limitation just minutes after being posted. On the other hand, another tweet, posted a few moments earlier and in which he seems to claim the victory, was left accessible. “I will make a statement tonight. A great VICTORY! “, he writes.
