Facebook and Twitter on alert to stop premature victory claims
FACEBOOK and Twitter were on high alert for candidates prematurely claiming victory last night, amid fears that the drawn-out vote counting process could inspire efforts to disrupt the final result.
The social media companies said they would apply warning labels to posts or tweets affirming that a presidential nominee has won in individual states or the overall election.
A deluge of postal votes, and rules allowing ballots in some states to be received several days after election day, mean the momentum in tight races could swing from one candidate to another as votes are tallied.
Election officials fear that declaring victory early could disrupt ballot counting in the ensuing days and potentially lead to violence if results change during that time.
If large news organisations take longer than usual to call results, it could create a vacuum that is filled by social media.
Donald Trump has reportedly been weighing up plans to declare victory on the night if it looks like he is ahead even if votes are not fully counted. He has insisted that counting postal votes after yesterday would qualify as fraud.
Facebook and Twitter, which were roundly criticised in 2016’s presidential race for failing to tackle propaganda efforts from Russia, said they would crack down on posts claiming victory before results have been officially declared by state officials or news outlets.
If a Twitter account declares a result the company said it would add a label that hides the original tweet and says it is sharing inaccurate information.
If a tweet claims a result that is contrary to what official sources say, a further warning will be applied saying that official sources have contradicted it. Users will also be blocked from retweeting messages with the warnings, which will apply to candidates with official accounts or any account with more than 100,000 followers.
Facebook said it would take similar action on posts declaring victory.
Yesterday it put alerts at the top of every American user’s news feed with warnings that votes were “still being counted” and said it would apply its policies until Reuters and the National Election Pool called a result.
The social network said it had dozens of staff working around the clock in a virtual “war room”. It has also been preparing to take extraordinary measures such as reducing the spread of viral posts if fears emerge that the election could turn violent.