06/02/2023

After Fox News declared Arizona a victory for Joe Biden, the president baselessly claimed Democrats “are trying to STEAL the Election.”

Facebook and Twitter placed warning labels on posts in which President Donald Trump claimed he had won the 2020 election and that Democrats were “trying to steal” victory.
Late Tuesday night, Facebook put a label beneath Trump’s post in which he declared “a big WIN!” and said he’d be making a statement. The label explained that votes were still being counted and that a winner had not yet been called in the presidential race. The label linked out to a page labeled “Voting Information Center.”
Facebook also labeled a post in which Trump said Democrats were trying to “STEAL the Election.”
“Final results may be different from initial vote counts, as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks,” the label read. 
Trump made both of these statements on Twitter, too.
Twitter attached a warning to the president’s tweet claiming the election was being stolen, saying the post contained information that “is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
I will be making a statement tonight. A big WIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
“We placed a warning on this Tweet for making a potentially misleading claim about an election,” a Twitter spokesperson said. “This action is in line with our Civic Integrity Policy, and as is standard with this warning, we will significantly restrict engagements on this Tweet.”
The civil integrity policy states that users “may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes.”
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
We placed a warning on a Tweet from @realDonaldTrump for making a potentially misleading claim about an election. This action is in line with our Civic Integrity Policy. More here: https://t.co/k6OkjNXEAm
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) November 4, 2020
Trump fired off these missives after Fox News said Arizona had been called in favor of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
After Fox News’ announcement, Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller wrote a series of tweets pushing back on the claims and demanding the network retract the call.
WAY too soon to be calling Arizona…way too soon. We believe over 2/3 of those outstanding Election Day voters are going to be for Trump. Cant believe Fox was so anxious to pull the trigger here after taking so long to call Florida. Wow.
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) November 4, 2020
1/ @FoxNews is a complete outlier in calling Arizona, and other media outlets should not follow suit.
There are still 1M+ Election Day votes out there waiting to be counted – we pushed our people to vote on Election Day, but now Fox News is trying to invalidate their votes!
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) November 4, 2020
2/ We only need 61% of the outstanding, uncounted Election Day votes in Arizona to win.
These votes are coming from our counties, and the 61% figure is very doable based on what our other Election Day votes are looking like.@FoxNews should retract their call immediately.
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) November 4, 2020
The network’s decision desk director, Arnon Mishkin, defended the call and explained that the outstanding votes to come from Maricopa County, where Biden is in a “very good position.”
“I’m sorry, the president is not going to be able to take over and win enough votes to eliminate that seven-point lead that the former vice president has,” Mishkin said on Fox News. “We’re four standard deviations from being wrong and I’m sorry, we’re not wrong in this case. We made the correct call and that’s why we made the correct call when we made it.”
Fox News Decision Desk Director Arnon Mishkin doubled down on calling Arizona for Biden.
“I’m sorry, the president is not going to be able to take over and win enough votes to eliminate that seven-point lead that the former vice president has.”
Here are his full comments on why pic.twitter.com/0KJAdY8v5S
— Stephanie K. Baer (@skbaer) November 4, 2020
This is the first time Facebook has labeled one of Trump’s posts, but Twitter has done so previously. 
On Monday, the platform flagged a tweet that attempted to sow doubt about ballots counted after Election Day.
And in May, Twitter added a warning label to a Trump tweet lambasting people protesting the police killing of George Floyd. “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” the president tweeted, threatening to send troops to stop “THUGS.” 
Twitter “determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible,” but added a warning label that said the tweet violated rules against glorifying violence.
The platform has also fact-checked the president’s tweets, allowing users to click on an exclamation point beneath a tweet to get more information.