Twitter immediately flags Trump tweet accusing Democrats of ‘trying to steal election’

Twitter adds disclaimer saying president’s message is ‘disputed’ and ‘might be misleading about an election’

(AFP via Getty Images)

Twitter on Tuesday night almost instantly flagged as “disputed” a tweet by President Donald Trump that claimed the Democrats were “trying to STEAL the election”.

It was one of the first reactions given by the president to the election results, which remained on a knife-edge, and came after his opponent Joe Biden gave a brief speech saying the contest was still up for grabs.

Mr Trump wrote: “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!”

The second half of the tweet appeared to refer to unfounded claims, made repeatedly by the Trump camp, that the counting of mail-in votes after election day somehow contributes to greater levels of voter fraud.

The social media platform added a disclaimer to the tweet saying that its content was “disputed” and “might be misleading about an election or other civic process". It also hid the tweet from immediately appearing in news feeds and on Mr Trump’s own profile - users need to click in to see what it says. 

The comment from Mr Trump came as Americans were poring over the latest vote totals on Tuesday night. The counting in many states is expected to continue well into Wednesday – and perhaps beyond.  

This is not the first time, that President Trump has tested the boundaries of Twitter’s election-specific policies.  

The platform last hid a Trump claim behind a warning when he railed against the Supreme Court’s decision to allow Pennsylvania officials to count ballots postmarked by election day.

Mr Trump’s tweet, which was marked “disputed”, read: “The Supreme Court decision on voting in Pennsylvania is a VERY dangerous one. It will allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!”

Twitter also disabled non-quote retweets, likes and reply options.  

The feud between Twitter and President Trump first escalated in May when the microblogging site applied a fact-checking label to a pair of his tweets in the aftermath of the Minneapolis riots. Twitter labelled a Trump tweet with a warning that it violated a rule against glorifying violence.  

Mr Trump took to the same platform to retaliate and declare that “Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!”  

This labelling from Twitter, which prevents the tweet from being shared, was carved out by the social media giant last June under what it called a “public interest exception”.  It only applied to government officials or candidates for office with more than 100,000 followers and a verified account, reported Wired.  

A day after, on 27 May, Mr Trump signed an executive order according to which the White House can direct federal agencies to stop advertising on all social media platforms that discriminate politically and asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate if they are mistreating users.  

More recently, in October the president lashed out at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey after the social media giant blocked a news story about Hunter Biden and his business links to Ukraine. Later, Mr Dorsey apologised on how they handled the New York Post report which had alleged that then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son arranged for a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm to meet with his father when he was in charge of US policy toward Ukraine.  

Twitter chose to restrict distribution of the story, citing its hacked material policy, which doesn’t “permit the use of our services to directly distribute content obtained through hacking that contains private information, may put people in physical harm or danger, or contains trade secrets.” The company later said that it blocked the story’s link specifically because it contained images of hacked material with personal and private information.

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