The 2020 election could face a number of potential complications, from possible Russian hacking efforts to the coronavirus. But chief among them is the likelihood of rampant misinformation—and the inability of tech companies to stop its spread. Twitter and Facebook were forced to confront the issue over the weekend, as a manipulated video of Democratic front-runner Joe Biden gained steam after being shared by President Donald Trump. Twitter responded by breaking out its newly-announced misinformation policy for the first time by flagging the tweet, and Facebook followed soon after. But as they companies responded to the flagrant misinformation, they also revealed their limitations in taking on these viral falsehoods.
The flagged video, which was first posted on Twitter Saturday by White House social media director Dan Scavino and later retweeted by Trump, shows Biden seemingly speaking out at a campaign rally in favor of the incumbent president he’s trying to beat. “We can only re-elect Donald Trump,” Biden says before the video cuts off. But the video, naturally, was selectively edited to change the nature of Biden’s remarks, which were actually intended to emphasize the necessity of unifying the Democratic base. “Excuse me. We can only reelect Donald Trump if in fact we get engaged in this circular firing squad here,” Biden actually said in full. “It’s got to be a positive campaign.” After announcing in February that it would now label manipulated media, like deepfakes or selectively edited content, Twitter responded to Scavino’s tweet by putting the policy in motion for the first time, labeling Scavino’s tweet as “manipulated media” on Sunday.
Twitter’s action against the video was a rare move, as the company typically has taken a hands-off policy when it comes to what the president shares on Twitter. But the damage may have already been done: The video had already been viewed more than five million times and retweeted more than 20,000 times by the time it was flagged, the New York Times notes. Furthermore, while Twitter says the “manipulated content” label appeared when the tweet was shown on users’ timelines, it does not appear when the tweet is searched for directly, ensuring that many who see the tweet will not receive any warning about its content. (Twitter spokesperson Katie Rosborough told the Washington Post the company is currently working on a fix.)
Facebook initially refused to remove or flag the video on its platform, immediately drawing the ire of the Biden campaign. “Facebook’s malfeasance when it comes to trafficking in blatantly false information is a national crisis in this respect,” Biden campaign manager Greg Schultz said in a statement. “It is also an unconscionable act of putting profit above not just our country, but every country.” This isn’t the first time the tech company has come under fire for its inaction on anti-Biden misinformation from the Trump campaign, after previously garnering criticism for refusing to take down a Biden attack ad relying on false information during Trump’s impeachment. While Facebook refused to back down in that case, however, the social media company partially reversed course on the Scavino video, announcing Monday they would flag the video and reduce its visibility. “Fact checkers rated this video as partly false, so we are reducing its distribution and showing warning labels with more context for people who see it, try to share it or already have,” Facebook said in a statement. (The Trump campaign, for its part, has continued to insist that the obviously edited video isn’t misinformation: Scavino said in a tweet that the video was “NOT manipulated,” and Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh told the Times, “The video was not manipulated … Joe Biden really is that bad.”)