Twitter puts warning label on Trump's false election tweet

Nothing is being stolen from Trump.
 By 
Keith Wagstaff
 on 
Twitter puts warning label on Trump's false election tweet

Donald Trump falsely claimed on Twitter that the election is being stolen from him and that votes can't be counted after polls are closed.

While Twitter didn't remove the message posted early Wednesday, it did hide the tweet and slap a warning label on it. You can still view the message if you click through. It's consistent with the social media platform's previously announced plan to stop politicians from making "premature claims of victory."

To be clear, nothing is being stolen from Trump. Several states allow for mail-in ballots to be counted if they're received after Nov. 3. And some count the votes of people waiting in line when polls close.

The president originally wrote "after the Poles are closed," but later deleted the tweet and published the current one.

Trump is clearly pushing the narrative — aided by the spread of misinformation earlier Tuesday night — that the election is rigged against him. That'll make it easier for conservative media and other Republicans to justify any efforts to undermine the democratic process.

Former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, meanwhile, tweeted that he would let the votes decide the outcome of the election.

Facebook also affixed a label to the president's same post on that platform, but a seemingly random one 25 minutes later: It just says, "final results may be different from initial vote counts, as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks." Uh, what?

UPDATE: Nov. 3, 2020, 11:14 p.m. PST: This post has been updated to include information about Trump's Facebook post that mirrors his false election tweet.

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Keith Wagstaff

Keith Wagstaff is an assistant editor at Mashable and a terrible Settlers of Catan player. He has written for TIME, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, NBC News, The Village Voice, VICE, GQ and New York Magazine, among many other reputable and not-so-reputable publications. After nearly a decade in New York City, he now lives in his native Los Angeles.

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