Twitter flags Trump's 'election stealing' tweet, labels it misleading

Twitter on Wednesday labelled US President Donald Trump's tweet that claimed the Democrats were 'stealing' the US election as disputed and misleading and hid it from the social media platform.

His tweet said, "We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the election. Votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed."

The tweet was placed behind a warning on the president's account that the content shared is "disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process." Twitter has taken similar action against Trump's account in the past.

Facebook also flagged the post of president Trump. “Final results may be different from initial vote counts, as ballots counting will continue for days and weeks,” Facebook said, quoting Bipartisan Policy Center.

The social media giant also flagged the second post by Trump in which he claimed that he is winning big and will soon make a statement.

“I will be making a statement tonight. A big WIN!” he said.

Flagging the post, Facebook said, “the winner of the 2000 US Presidential Election has not been projected.”

Earlier, Twitter pinned a warning on a Trump campaign tweet declaring victory in the battleground state of South Carolina, saying it was premature and not confirmed by official sources.

A message under the tweet, in which the campaign trumpeted that Trump had won the Southern state, said “official sources may not have called the race when this was Tweeted," the Politico reported.

The action came even as multiple news outlets - including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and POLITICO - have similarly projected that President Trump will win the state, the report said.

The tweet, said the social media giant, violates a rule rolled out for this election that requires such tweets to be backed by calls from at least two of seven specified news organisations.

Twitter, though, left alone a similar Trump campaign tweet declaring victory in Florida because, the company said, it included a nod to one of Twitter’s seven approved race callers.

The US' biggest social media companies have in recent days said that so-called premature declarations of victory were one of their primary concerns headed into this fraught Election Day, especially on a night expected to be full of close contests across the country.

A final verdict on who wins the presidency could take days or weeks depending on how the vote-counting, recounts and assorted court battles play out.

During the election campaign, Trump had accused the big tech companies of taking sides of Biden. He had alleged that the big tech companies do not want him to win the presidential elections.

When reports last came in, Trump had 174 electoral college votes, trailing behind 213 of his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Trump was projected to win two major battleground States, Florida and Ohio. He was leading in several other battleground States of North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada. Biden was leading in Arizona and Minnesota.

Input from agencies