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Twitter immediately flags Trumps first six tweets as misleading on day after Biden’s win

President used platform to continue to promote baseless claims of election fraud 

Louise Hall
Sunday 08 November 2020 15:10 EST
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Twitter immediately flagged all six of Donald Trump’s first tweets of the day as possibly misleading on Sunday, one day after his rival Joe Biden  was declared the winner of the US presidential election by major news networks.

On Sunday morning, the president used Twitter to lash out further at the electoral process and promote continued baseless claims of election fraud by posting quotes attributed to Newt Gingrich and a legal analyst.

All six of the posts were flagged by the social media platform within an hour of their publication by the president, with small blue exclamation points appearing underneath the post to alert users. 

Four of the tweets show a warning underneath by Twitter which reads “this claim about election fraud is disputed” while the other two display a different message that reads: “learn how voting by mail is safe and secure”.

Vox Journalist Aaron Rupar first highlighted the swift flagging of the president’s first tweets of the day saying: “President Trump has posted six tweets this morning and five of them have been flagged as possible misinformation by Twitter.”

Since then, a sixth tweet appears to have been flagged by the social media platform.

“We believe these people are thieves. The big city machines are corrupt. This was a stolen election,” read Mr Trump’s stream of tweets citing Mr Gingrich.

“Best pollster in Britain wrote this morning that this clearly was a stolen election, that it’s impossible to imagine that Biden outran Obama in some of these states.

“Where it mattered, they stole what they had to steal."

Read more: Follow 2020 US election results live

Mr Trump also threaded together an extended quote from attorney and academic Jonathan Turley in which he says there have been allegations of impropriety at vote-counting facilities and in ballot authentication, particularly in Philadelphia and Detroit.

The president has unleashed many tirades on the platform following election day on 3 November, lashing out at the election process and claiming that Democrats were trying to “steal” the election.

“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!,” he tweeted on Wednesday.

The Trump campaign has so far provided no definitive evidence of any voting irregularities.

The assault by Mr Trump’s legal team against certain states over the election is increasingly seeing dismissal among conservatives and Republicans who see no plausible basis on which to challenge or overturn the results.

His account was flagged seven different times across Wednesday and Thursday for posting misinformation and misleading claims about the election.

The continued tirades come amid reports that Mr Trump may be removed from Twitter after he leaves office if he continues to break the platform’s rules regarding public figures.

The rate of violations on Mr Trump’s account would likely typically lead to an account suspension, either temporarily or permanently. However, the platform’s public interest guidelines prevent the president’s account from being suspended or removed.

Once Mr Trump leaves office, he will seemingly no longer be protected against breaking the platform’s rules, which prevent him from being suspended as a candidate or current holder of political office.

Following the president’s rants on Thursday, Twitter did not confirm whether his latest violations would have warranted a suspension but noted that he had frequently violated its Civic Integrity Policy.

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