A recent report states that half of President Donald Trump’s posts since election day have been flagged as misinformation by Facebook and Twitter and censored on each platform.
Forbes reports that half of President Trump’s social media posts on Facebook and Twitter since election day have been labeled as false or questionable by the social media giants.
Of President Trump’s 22 posts on Facebook and Twitter, 11 have been labeled by the Silicon Valley tech firms. The posts include the President’s claims to victory and assertions of election fraud taking place. Twitter hid some posts on the President’s timeline and warned users that “some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process,” and restricted users’ ability to like or retweet the tweets.
Underneath some of President Trump’s Facebook posts, the social media company warned users that “final votes may different from the initial vote counts” or “elections officials follow strict rules when it comes to ballot counting, handling and reporting,” but users were still able to reply to and share the posts.
A recent analysis of President Trump’s engagement rate on the night of the election by the Election Integrity Partnership outlines how Twitter managed to massively cut the President’s engagement rate on election night by censoring certain tweets from the President’s account.
Breitbart News recently reported that President Trump expressed his feelings about a Supreme Court ruling on voting in Pennsylvania in a tweet, which Twitter marked as “misleading.” Trump stated: “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!”
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2020
The Election Integrity Partnership outlined how this affected President Trump’s engagement rate in a series of tweets:
1/5 On the eve of the election, @realDonaldTrump sent out a tweet criticizing a recent Supreme Court decision regarding PA ballot deadlines. His tweet made unfounded claims about the legitimacy of mail-in ballots and the Election, while fomenting fear of violence.
— Election Integrity Partnership (@2020Partnership) November 3, 2020
3/5 Around 40 min later, Twitter took action by hiding the tweet behind an informational label and preventing it from being retweeted. The graph below shows the rate of retweets and quote tweets, which were dramatically reduced after Twitter took action https://t.co/t0w183GgxZ pic.twitter.com/ZN5CwHvTxn
— Election Integrity Partnership (@2020Partnership) November 3, 2020
According to the New York Times’ report on the analysis, “Before Mr. Trump’s tweet was labeled, it was shared or replied to about 827 times a minute. After it was labeled, that dropped to 151 times a minute, according to the E.I.P. analysis.”
Read more at Breitbart News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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