President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Lititz, Pa, on Oct. 26,.
AFP via Getty Images
Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. quickly flagged a post by President Donald Trump overnight that claimed he was winning and that the election was being stolen from him.
Trump had been unusually quiet on social media on election night, not tweeting until past midnight Eastern time, first that he would make a statement and claiming “A big WIN,” followed by a tweet claiming “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election.”
As of early Tuesday, Trump trailed Joe Biden by a wide margin in the overall national vote, while Biden had a slim lead in the more important electoral count.
As it did with another of his tweets Monday night, Twitter TWTR, +5.72% quickly hid Trump’s message, saying: “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.” Users had to click “view” to see the original tweet.
Trump posted the same message on Facebook FB, +1.50%, which did not hide it but added a note directing users to its election hub, and saying “final results may be different from initial vote counts, as ballot counting will continue for days or weeks.”
The tweet flagged by Twitter was actually Trump’s second attempt — an earlier version misspelled “Polls” as “Poles.” It was quickly deleted and replaced with the proper spelling.
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