Election 2020: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube battle with false information

This story belongs to Elections 2020, CNET’s protection of the ballot in November and its consequences.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are fighting waves of false information after the governmental election was gotten in touch with Saturday early morning for Democrat Joe Biden, who won the popular vote and has actually amassed more than 5.1 million votes throughout the United States than his competitor.

Among the most significant difficulties: President Donald Trump, who’s been utilizing social media networks to wrongly declare, without proof, that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. Twitter rapidly added cautionary notes to 5 of 7 Trump tweets on Saturday early morning, consisting of one in which the president incorrectly declared he had actually won. The tweets were published prior to significant wire service, consisting of CNN, NBC and Fox, made their election require previous Vice President Biden.

One of 2 later tweets, in which Trump baselessly declared “BAD THINGS” had actually taken place throughout the count, was identified as challenged. Clicking on the label takes users to a page that calls citizen scams “exceedingly rare.” The following day, Trump blasted out 8 tweets, 6 of which were identified. Since then, the president has actually continued to tweet and re-tweet products the social networks network has actually added with alerting labels — even as state regulators from both political celebrations are stating there’s no proof of scams or other abnormalities that would have preferred one prospect over another.

Other difficulties for the social media networks consist of imposter accounts impersonating reliable wire service, live streams transmitting phony outcomes and phony reports of Sharpies being utilized to reduce votes. (No, utilizing a Sharpie didn’t and does not revoke your tally.)

Misinformation after the Nov. 3 election has actually gotten so bad that Christopher Krebs, the director of the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, required to Twitter to advise citizens to hesitate prior to forwarding an incorrect web report about a supercomputer changing votes. (The report, called “Hammer and Scorecard,” has an inglorious backstory, according to Snopes.)

The three big social networks — Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — have established policies for dealing with misinformation, from applying labels to questionable info to deleting posts and banning users. The election continues to keep them busy.

Read more: Here’s how to recognize election misinformation

All the networks label questionable posts and remove falsehoods if the content has the potential to incite violence. Facebook takes a more hands-off approach to posts from politicians than Twitter, which has limited the reach of Trump’s tweets. On all election-related videos and search results, YouTube applies a warning that results may not be final.

Here are some of the most significant cases of misinformation and how the social networks responded.

Facebook

• By far the biggest challenge the social network faced has been handling posts by Trump, who used Facebook to question results as soon as the polls closed on election night. A post late on Nov. 3 by the president alleged without evidence that he was “up BIG” and his political opponents were “trying to steal the election.” Facebook labeled the post with information that the vote count was ongoing and directed users to an election information center. More than 101 million US voters cast ballots early — either in person or by mail — because of concerns about voting in person during the coronavirus pandemic, which is why election officials were already prepared for counting to take days if not weeks. 
• Facebook continued adding labels to misleading posts by the president as votes were being counted. After major news organizations called the race, some labels on Trump posts identified Biden as the “projected winner.” The social network added notes to some Trump posts that reminded users the vote would take longer than usual because of COVID-19 and that election officials follow strict rules.
• Facebook added a label under a video shared on Trump’s page in which the president falsely claims, “Frankly, we did win this election.” Trump made the comment during a late-night media address that was broadcast on TV on election night. 
• The social network shut down a massive group called “STOP THE STEAL” that was spreading false claims that Democrats were trying to rig the election. The group had more than 364,000 members. 
• Facebook was recommending live videos to users with election misinformation and Russian state-controlled media content, according to BuzzFeed News. The company pulled down some of the videos.

Twitter

• Twitter added notes to five of seven Trump tweets on Saturday morning. Four were obscured and required users to click through in order to read them. Some of the tweets baselessly said there was misconduct in the vote count in several close states. 
• Twitter added notes to six of eight Trump tweets on Sunday. 
• Twitter labeled a Trump tweet that falsely alleged election tampering as “disputed” and potentially “misleading.” It also obscured the president’s tweet. Users can’t like the tweet and can share it only if they weigh in with their own comment. 
• Twitter subsequently labeled and obscured several Trump tweets and retweets, including one calling to “STOP THE FRAUD!” There isn’t any evidence of election fraud. More than 77 million people cast votes in favor of Biden, while over 72 million voted for Trump.
• Twitter allowed a clip of Trump’s false victory claim during an election night television appearance to remain on its platform without a label. Twitter said the video, which was shared by media outlets, didn’t violate its policies. The video, shared by the Trump campaign account, has more than 22 million views.
• Twitter suspended a group of accounts that posed as legitimate news organizations. Some of the accounts, which mimicked the Associated Press and CNN, spread false reports that Democrat Joe Biden had won the election before the vote tallies were in. The groups appeared to be working together.

YouTube

• The Google-owned video-sharing service added a label under the video of Trump falsely claiming victory on election night. The video has more than 414,000 views on Trump’s channel. (The label, though, isn’t intended only for misinformation. It appears under all election-related videos and search results.)
• YouTube took down multiple videos livestreaming fake election results hours before polls closed anywhere in the country. The video streams, some of which ran ads that made the account holders money, were viewed by thousands of people before being removed. One of the channels carrying a stream appeared to have almost 1.5 million subscribers.
• YouTube has been criticized for refusing to take down two videos by One America News, a far right news organization, that falsely declare victory for Trump. Despite the false claims in the videos, YouTube said they do not violate the platform’s guidelines, which focus narrowly on voter suppression. The platform, however, will no longer show advertisements on the videos, denying the network of profits.