Misinformation Watch

Twitter and Facebook applied labels to posts from President Donald Trump overnight which included baseless claims undermining the integrity of the election. But the two companies have very different approaches, with Twitter taking far more punitive action against the President. 

As Trump continues to post online in the hours and days ahead, it is possible the social media companies will take action on more of his posts. 

Twitter labeled a tweet that Trump sent early Wednesday morning in which he baselessly claimed, "We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election.” Twitter is hiding the tweet behind the label and restricting how it can be shared, including removing the ability for people to directly retweet the post. 

"Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about how to participate in an election or another civic process,” the Twitter label reads. 

On the exact same post on its platform, Facebook uses vague language in its label -- and, unlike Twitter, it is not restricting how it can be viewed or shared. 

In fact, on Wednesday morning it was one of the most popular posts on Facebook, according to data from Crowdtangle, an analytics company that Facebook itself owns. 

The Facebook label says: “Final results may be different from initial vote counts, as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks.”

Facebook also labeled another post from Donald Trump in which he said, "I will be making a statement tonight. A big WIN!" 

“Votes are still being counted. The winner of the 2020 US Presidential Election has not been projected,” the label says.

A Facebook spokesperson also pointed to a message the company is showing on the top of users’ feeds: “Once President Trump began making premature claims of victory, we started running top-of-feed notifications on Facebook and Instagram so that everyone knows votes are still being counted and the winner has not been projected,” the spokesperson said. 

“The winner of the 2020 US Presidential Election has not been projected yet,” the message reads in part. 

Of course, Trump and his supporters view any action that calls out or restricts his posts in this way as Big Tech censorship. 

Twitter has placed a label on a tweet by President Trump in which he baselessly claimed "We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election.”

"Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about how to participate in an election or another civic process,” the Twitter label reads. 

Twitter has also restricted how the tweet can be shared.

The same language was also posted to the President’s Facebook page. The social network placed a label on it that reads: "Final results may be different from initial vote counts, as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks."

Unlike Twitter, however, Facebook did not place any restrictions on the sharing of Trump's post.

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said: "Once President Trump began making premature claims of victory, we started running top-of-feed notifications on Facebook and Instagram so that everyone knows votes are still being counted and the winner has not been projected. We also started applying labels to both candidates’ posts automatically with this information."

Twitter and Facebook on Tuesday suspended accounts with tens of thousands of followers for violating their policies, as the platforms scramble to combat misinformation on election day.

A Twitter spokesperson said the accounts were suspended for violating its rules on "spam and platform manipulation."

The accounts Twitter barred included SVNewsAlerts, which was created in May this year and had more than 78,000 followers as of Monday according to the WayBack Machine internet archive. Other suspended accounts included FJNewsReporter and Crisis_Intel, Twitter spokesperson Lauren Alexander confirmed to CNN Business. 

Facebook also suspended accounts linked to the pages of SV News and FJ News for inauthentic behavior, company spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed. 

Both companies declined to comment on exactly how many accounts they suspended. The moves were first reported by Reuters.

Twitter is applying labels to tweets that, by its standards, are prematurely calling election results for either candidate. 

“Official sources may not have called the race when this was Tweeted,” the label reads. 

The social network previously explained its new rules in a blog post: "To determine the results of an election in the US, we require either an announcement from state election officials, or a public projection from at least two authoritative, national news outlets that make independent election calls. Tweets which include premature claims will be labeled and direct people to our official US election page."

With this type of label, Twitter is not indicating the tweet contains potential misinformation. Instead, it is meant to give people reading the tweet context and help them parse projections as the night goes on.

When people try to share the tweet, they are first prompted to "find out more" and are directed to Twitter's official election page. Labeled tweets can only be quote tweeted, not retweeted. Users can still reply or like a labeled tweet. (Quote tweets append a user's commentary to the original tweet.)

Here's one of the first tweets that Twitter labeled (CNN would call Florida for President Trump hours later):

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican businesswoman known for espousing conspiratorial and bigoted views, won her House race on Tuesday to represent northwest Georgia, CNN projects.

Greene brings a history of prejudice and a proclivity for amplifying conspiracies. She said that George Soros, a Holocaust survivor, collaborated with Nazis. She called "Q" a "patriot" who is "worth listening to." She said that the deadly White supremacist rally held in 2017 in Charlottesville was an "inside job" to "further the agenda of the elites."

QAnon believers have embraced a number of different and often contradictory theories, but the basic false beliefs underlying the far-right conspiracy theory are claims about a cabal of politicians and A-list celebrities engaging in child sex abuse, and a “deep state” effort to undermine President Trump. The FBI has warned such fringe views amount to a domestic terror threat.

However, Greene has since distanced herself from QAnon. In August, she told Fox News that QAnon "wasn't part of my campaign" and that once she "started finding misinformation," she "chose another path."

Want to know more about QAnon? Here's some of our previous coverage:

--CNN's Alex Rogers contributed reporting

Twitter has suspended the account of David Icke, a prominent UK conspiracy theorist who popularized the false idea that a shape-shifting lizard-like species exerts control over human society by garnering political power to manipulate the world.

A Twitter spokesperson confirmed Icke's account has been permanently suspended for violating the platform's rules about COVID misinformation. The spokesperson would not elaborate on what Tweet caused the suspension or how many followers he had.

Facebook removed Icke's page in May for publishing "health misinformation that could cause physical harm," the BBC reported at the time.

Earlier this year, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) called on social media platforms to take down Icke's various accounts. The campaign said he has denied the existence of Covid-19, falsely linked the virus to 5G networks and claimed that people with healthy immune systems are safe from contracting the virus. 

"He has been using them to spread racism, medical misinformation and conspiracy theories for years," CCDH wrote about Icke and his use of social platforms. "In the face of this global pandemic that has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, it is more urgent than ever that accounts spreading harmful misinformation are prevented from doing so."

Twitter on Tuesday also suspended DeAnna Lorraine, a former GOP congressional candidate who has spread the QAnon conspiracy theory, for repeated violations of the platform’s rules.

While Twitter wouldn't provide more details, a person familiar with the matter cited a tweet by Lorraine Tuesday morning baselessly warning that an election loss by President Donald Trump would result in an influx of millions of violent people into the United States

--CNN's Brian Fung contributed reporting

Pennsylvania, which could be critical in determining who wins the presidency, has emerged as an early focus of online misinformation on Election Day, with much of it coming from the right. 

The most prominent topic being discussed concerns allegations, which are for the most part either unsubstantiated or just plain false, of perceived unfairness toward Republican poll-watchers, with the implication that something untoward may be going on that people don't want the poll-watchers to see. There have been no substantiated reports of mistreatment of poll-watchers.

Pennsylvania's 20 Electoral College votes are hotly contested — "this is the most important state this election cycle," CNN's Harry Enten wrote in an analysis of close contests Tuesday. The focus on it from Trump supporters may reflect some anxiety over that: Enten noted that "Trump likely can't win without it." The fact that results in the state may not be known with any certainty Tuesday night has likely contributed to the intense focus on the state as well.

Philadelphia, which is heavily Democratic, has been a particular focus of attention. The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office on Tuesday called out tweets from a Republican operative and from a Newsmax columnist as being "deliberately deceptive."

The tweets alleged a sign in support of Democratic nominee Joe Biden was a violation of election rules because of its proximity to a polling location.

The false tweets had been shared more than 10,000 times on Twitter as of Tuesday afternoon.

"Members of our Election Task Force have investigated this allegation. This polling place is located in an interior room and the sign in question is further than 10 feet from it. This tweet is deliberately deceptive," the DA's office tweeted.

Read more here

Cutting through the noise of social media and figuring out what's true and false can be tough. These steps can make it easier.

Twitter labeled a tweet from President Trump “disputed” and restricted its sharing on the eve of the election after he criticized a Supreme Court decision to allow counting of ballots received up to three days after Election Day in Pennsylvania.

In the tweet posted Monday evening, Trump baselessly claimed the court’s decision would "allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws.”

Adding, "It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!”

Twitter placed a label on the tweet and removed the ability for the post to be retweeted. The label reads, "Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about how to participate in an election or another civic process.”

The same message from Trump was also posted to his Facebook page. 

Facebook placed a label on the post but did not restrict how it could be shared. Facebook’s label also did not specifically call out the claims as being false. It reads “Both voting by mail and voting in person have a long history of trustworthiness in the US. Voter fraud is extremely rare across voting methods.” 

Neither company labeled the tweet as inciting violence.