Facebook, Twitter and Google made preparations for how to respond if a candidate prematurely declared a win.
The country’s largest social networks are bracing for confusion among their millions of users and a potential torrent of misinformation in the days to come after President Donald Trump falsely claimed victory over former Vice President Joe Biden despite the many votes yet to be counted.
Trump’s premature announcement, during a White House appearance shortly after 2 a.m. Wednesday, drew cheers from his supporters in the room. But it added to worries that his words would sow doubts on the evolving vote tallies and set the stage for protracted legal battles — tensions that will surely echo online.
“We will win this and, as far as I’m concerned, we already have won,” Trump said at the White House, falsely declaring that he had clinched states where millions of votes cast on or before Election Day had not yet been counted. He also vowed to go to the Supreme Court, baselessly calling the election a “fraud on the American public.”
Silicon Valley saw this coming: Premature declarations of victory are one of the dangers that social media companies have been bracing for in recent weeks, after months of warnings from tech executives and misinformation experts that online incendiaries could spread lies and undermine the electoral process. Facebook, Twitter and Google have adapted their election-response playbooks as a result, but they’re nevertheless stuck navigating a political minefield for the foreseeable future.
They’ll be on alert for foreign or domestic misinformation that exploits the moment of uncertainty, as well as hostile rhetoric from far-right groups that were agitated even before the election. And it could force the companies to challenge the narratives of a president who has repeatedly claimed Silicon Valley is biased against him and his party — worsening the risks that the Trump administration will sharpen its policy attacks on the tech giants.
Earlier Wednesday morning, Twitter and Facebook placed warning labels on a pair of Trump’s posts on the status of the election, saying he had violated policies against election misinformation and inaccurate claims of victory. The companies had been tracking and labeling misinformation throughout Election Day, including some involving isolated incidents in Pennsylvania that the Trump campaign and its supported latched onto to cast doubt on results.
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Social media networks are bracing for confusion and a potential torrent of misinformation in the days to come after Trump falsely claimed victory despite the many votes yet to be countedhttps://t.co/mP3E7awkrT
— POLITICO (@politico) November 4, 2020
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