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Twitter logo: Premature declarations of victory are false information
Photo: OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP
After Facebook, Twitter is also taking precautions in the event that one of the candidates in the US presidential election declares himself the premature winner.
Such posts belong to tweets with false information, which are flagged or removed, as the short message service announced on Thursday.
Tweets marked accordingly will remain on the platform, but their distribution will be restricted.
"We want to protect our service from being abused in important social processes by one side for its own interests," said the Twitter security team.
The background is not least the concern that US President Donald Trump could prematurely announce his election victory on Twitter on election evening.
In a hearing, Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen publicly formulated such a fear: "Based on the experience of working with Donald Trump, I think it is possible that he will not relinquish power peacefully if he loses the election on November 3rd" .
Last week, Facebook also announced that it would add warnings to such posts.
In view of the Corona crisis, a high proportion of postal voters is expected this year, which means that the final result of the vote on November 3 may only be clear later than usual.
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