Twitter Support announced Monday that Tuesday night election data on the social media platform will be provided by ABC News, the Associated Press, CNN, CBS News, Decision Desk HQ, Fox News and NBC News.
“We’ll consider a result official when announced by a state election official, or when calls are made by at least two of the [seven] national news outlets that have dedicated, independent election decision desks,” read the tweet within a thread on the platform’s 2020 election approach.
This comes a day after US President Donald Trump reportedly told confidants he will preemptively declare victory in the presidential race if it appears that he is ahead.
It’s unclear where Trump, who has denied making such a statement, will get his election data.
"I think it's a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election. I think it's a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over,” he said, as reported by Axios.
Trump, for the past several months, has expressed distrust in the mail-in ballot system while also personally using it. His parroting of conspiracy theories and misinformation resulted in Twitter flagging and “fact-checking” a number of his tweets.
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
The US president has also floated the idea that the results of the November 3 election could be decided by the US Supreme Court, which recently saw Justice Amy Coney Barrett added to the bench following an expedited US Senate confirmation hearing.
The social media platform’s support team also reserved the right to flag tweets about election results issued by users whose accounts fall under certain criteria. Posts may also be flagged if they reach 25,000 likes or a combined 25,000 quote tweets and retweets.
“We’ll be prioritizing the presidential election and other highly contested races where there may be significant issues with misleading information,” the issuance read.
Tweets are eligible to be labeled if:
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 2, 2020
1. The account has a US 2020 candidate label (including presidential candidates & campaigns)
2. The account is US-based with more than 100k followers, or
3. They have significant engagement (25k likes or 25k Quote Tweets + Retweets).
Netizens attempting to retweet a post with the tentative “misleading information” label will receive a prompt which references “official sources.”
