Facebook and Twitter on Thursday flagged a post written by President Donald Trump about the mail-in voting process.
In Trump’s Facebook post, he tells voters they may have to vote both through the mail and in-person to make their vote count, which is illegal in all states, and is even considered a felony in North Carolina, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“Based on the massive number of Unsolicited & Solicited Ballots that will be sent to potential Voters for the upcoming 2020 Election, & in order for you to MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE COUNTS & IS COUNTED, SIGN & MAIL IN your Ballot as EARLY as possible.”
Facebook’s flagged message does not directly say Trump’s post is misleading but instead instructs users to seek additional information. The message appears underneath Trump’s post and says: “Voting by mail has a long history of trustworthiness in the U.S. and the same is predicted this year.” It also includes the information’s source from Bipartisan Policy Center and a link to Facebook’s Voting Information Center.
Twitter also placed a public interest notice on the same message Trump posted as a serious of tweets on Thursday. Twitter said the post violates their “Civic Integrity Policy, specifically for encouraging people to potentially vote twice.”
“To protect people on Twitter, we err on the side of limiting the circulation of Tweets which advise people to take actions which could be illegal in the context of voting or result in the invalidation of their votes,” Twitter’s official safety account tweeted.
Digital Trends reached out to Facebook and Twitter to comment on their choice to flag Trump’s posts. We will update this story when we hear back.
This isn’t the first time Facebook has had to deal with content posted by Trump. In August, the social network removed Trump’s Facebook post over coronavirus misinformation. The post included part of a Fox News phone interview with the president in which he said that children are “almost immune” to the virus.
Despite these two instances, the social media giant has been routinely criticized for not doing enough to curb misinformation on its platform.
Twitter, however, is much stricter when it comes to policing Trump’s posts. Twitter has flagged, removed, or hid his tweets multiple times over misinformation, copyright infringement, and violating its policies against violence.
