Facebook and Twitter have deployed emergency measures to counter Donald Trump’s false claims of victory on their social networks, bringing them more directly into conflict with the US president than ever before.
The two tech platforms had announced plans in the run-up to the election to counter misinformation about the vote, as well as premature claims of victory, and on the night of and day after, both companies mostly stuck to the plan.
Facebook notably dropped the euphemistic phrasing that had previously accompanied its announcements, which discussed the risk that “candidates” may falsely claim a win. It also walked back a previous policy that would have allowed candidates to claim state-level victories before they were called, despite barring the premature announcement of a national win.
On Wednesday it started to flag posts from Trump and affiliates claiming the president had won Pennsylvania and other battleground states, even as ballots continued to be counted and official results had yet to be announced.
A company spokesperson cited Trump by name in explaining its decision, saying: “Once President Trump began making premature claims of victory, we started running notifications on Facebook and Instagram that votes are still being counted and a winner is not projected. We’re also automatically applying labels to both candidates’ posts with this information.”