Two Big Tech giants have attached warning labels and filters to posts by President Donald Trump about the election.
Facebook and Twitter placed warning labels on but did not remove Trump’s posts urging North Carolina residents to show up to polling places in order to ensure their ballots had been counted. Trump warned North Carolina voters: “To make sure your Ballot COUNTS, sign & send it in EARLY,” and urged them to “go to your Polling Place to see if it was COUNTED.” He followed up by suggesting “IF NOT, VOTE!” Trump claimed that “Your signed Ballot will not count because your vote has been posted,” and warned: “Don’t let them illegally take your vote away from you!”
Twitter responded by labeling the tweet with an interstitial, or filter: “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about civic and election integrity. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible. Learn more.”
Instead of taking Trump’s tweet as a good faith warning to make sure that people’s votes were counted, Twitter interpreted it as a call for his supporters to “potentially vote twice,” which the platform stated “is illegal” in North Carolina. The interstitial linked to a thread which explained “We placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our Civic Integrity Policy, specifically for encouraging people to potentially vote twice.”
Facebook also labelled the tweet. The label linked to the platform’s Voter Information Center on Trump’s post. The label stated: “Voting by mail has a long history of trustworthiness in the US and the same is predicted this year. (Source: Bipartisan Policy Center).”
Facebook labelled another post of Trump’s comments that very day where he voiced his concerns over voter fraud:
“The Unsolicited Mail In Ballot Scam is a major threat to our Democracy, & the Democrats know it. Almost all recent elections using this system, even though much smaller & with far fewer Ballots to count, have ended up being a disaster. Large numbers of missing Ballots & Fraud!
Facebook had also labelled a post by President Donald Trump on September 3 for teaching Americans how to avoid voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Trump had urged his followers to “MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE COUNTS & IS COUNTED, SIGN & MAIL IN your Ballot as EARLY as possible.” He further encouraged his supporters: “[G]o to your Polling Place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted).” He then told voters how to verify that their votes had been properly collected:
If it has you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly. If it has not been Counted, VOTE (which is a citizen’s right to do). If your Mail In Ballot arrives after you Vote, which it should not, that Ballot will not be used or counted in that your vote has already been cast & tabulated. YOU ARE NOW ASSURED THAT YOUR PRECIOUS VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED, it hasn’t been “lost, thrown out, or in any way destroyed.” GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!
Conservatives are under attack. Contact the FCC at 1-888-225-5322 and/or via the MRC’s FCC contact form to give your take on the petition filed by the Department of Commerce regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives.
