Facebook and Twitter seized several misleading contributions from President Donald Trump on the election results as the votes rolled on Tuesday, highlighting both similarities and differences in the treatment of political messages.
Both companies named a post in which the president claimed without evidence that his political opponents were "trying to steal the election" and that he was "BIG" in the vote. Twitter described the tweet as potentially misleading and, among other things, obscured it from immediate view. Facebook marked an identical post with the information that the number of votes is still ongoing.
Social media companies have stepped up their fight against misinformation, including posts by high-profile politicians that have been scrutinized by civil rights groups, politicians and celebrities. The actions against the Trump posts reflect increased vigilance towards posts, which include premature election results or misleading information.
The social network approaches also shed light on differences in the way in which Facebook and Twitter moderate content from politicians. The 2020 US election was a major test, and researchers are still evaluating the effectiveness of the company's efforts.
Facebook usually takes a largely straightforward approach to policymakers' posts and relieves them of fact-checking by third parties. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has repeatedly defended politics, saying he believes the public should be able to see what politicians are saying. However, the company recently started Flagging contributions from politicians and forwarding users to the voting information center.
Twitter has taken a tougher stance than Facebook against misinformation from politicians. The short message service not only obscures tweets behind warning notices (and lets users click through to read the tweets if they wish), but it is also taking steps to limit the circulation of those tweets on its service by limiting users' ability to engage with you.
These different approaches were fully demonstrated when the votes were counted on election night. In addition to covering up Trump's tweet, which unfoundedly claimed the election was stolen, Twitter prevented users from using two features, liking and retweeting, which can help spread a tweet on the service.
Continue reading: Not a winner yet: How to spot misinformation while waiting for results
Twitter, whose label said Trump's "up BIG" tweet was controversial and potentially misleading, "also added an obstacle for users who want to read it. Users have to click the View button, which also links to a page of context from various news outlets. Users can still share the tweet by leaving their own comment.
Facebook flagged an identical post on Trump's page, but it took more time to apply its notice. In contrast to Twitter, Facebook did not limit the reach of the post or hide it behind a note. On the Facebook label under Trump's post it says: "The final results may differ from the initial number of votes as the election counting continues for days or weeks." The notification contains a link to the Facebook Voting Information Center.
The jury is still busy with the labeling
Claire Wardle, U.S. director of First Draft News, a nonprofit dealing with misinformation, said it was unclear how well labels work, but there should be more consistency among social media sites.
"I'm a little frustrated that they all have different label designs because I think that's confusing to the audience," said Wardle.
Platforms also need to be more transparent about how they make their content moderation decisions. Researchers have yet to investigate how well labels work, she added, even as content outside of major social networks is amplified.
"We have to be careful not to just assume that any type of label or any type of intervention is net profit," said Wardle.
Conservatives have resisted the labeling and accused social networks of deliberately suppressing their language. Facebook and Twitter have denied these allegations, adding that labels provide more context for users.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
In some cases, Twitter did not label tweets flagged by other platforms.
For example, Google's Facebook and YouTube have added labels under a video in which Trump falsely claimed, "Honestly, we won this election." The video posted on Trump's Facebook page has 10 million views. The video received 248,500 views on Trump's YouTube channel.
The same video shared on Twitter by the Trump campaign has more than 16 million views on the social media site. Twitter didn't put a label on it.
A Twitter spokesman noted that the video was shared by media companies. "Recordings or clips from the press conference alone are not against our policy," he said in an email.
Twitter said it would consider a result official if announced by a state official or the calls are made by at least two out of seven national news outlets. These outlets include ABC, Associated Press, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC News, and Decision Desk HQ. Facebook said it would rely on the National Election Pool / Edison through Reuters, the Associated Press and six "independent decision-making bodies at major media outlets to determine when to forecast a presidential winner." These sales outlets were not named.
On Tuesday night, Twitter captioned a Trump campaign tweet calling for victory in South Carolina, saying, "Official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted." On Wednesday morning, Twitter also covered up a tweet from Democratic Party leader Ben Wikler, Wisconsin, who described the state as a victory for Democratic challenger Joe Biden, and said the tweet was "controversial and potentially misleading."
Facebook told the Wall Street Journal late Tuesday evening that its anti-premature victory policy applies to the overall result of the presidential election, not to individual states. The following day, the company updated the policy to include individual states.
