Facebook, Twitter seek to limit spread of Trump remarks on voting twice to test system

Facebook and Twitter both took steps Thursday to limit the spread of remarks by President Trump encouraging voters to test the system by voting twice — by mail and in person.

In a local TV interview in Wilmington, N.C., on Wednesday, Trump suggested that people should vote twice, which is illegal.

He then made similar remarks to a crowd of supporters at the Wilmington airport.

Facebook announced it would take down videos of the interview if the posts did not “correct the record” on voter fraud.

It also a labeled a post from the president where he made a similar, although not identical claim.

In the post, Trump said that voters should mail in ballots and then go to your polling location on Election Day and see whether or not the mail-in ballot has been tabulated.

“If it has you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly,” he wrote. “If it has not been Counted, VOTE (which is a citizen’s right to do).”

As part of the policy update that Facebook rolled out earlier Thursday, the post was appended with a label saying that according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, “voting by mail has a long history of trustworthiness in the US and the same is predicted this year.”

The label links to Facebook’s Voting Information Center, which contains information about elections from vetted sources.

Trump posted the same message on Twitter on Thursday.

The tweets, encouraging people to vote twice, were determined to have violated the platform’s rules about civic and election integrity.

While the tweets were kept up to serve “the public’s interest” the ability to like or retweet them was removed.

North Carolina officials will begin sending absentee ballots on Friday to voters who have requested them. North Carolina represents a key swing state in the 2020 election. 

Following Trump’s remarks, Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina state board of elections, issued a statement emphasizing that it illegal in the state to vote or attempt to vote twice in an election.