Twitter to Label Accounts Calling an Early US Election Winner

On Monday, Twitter Inc announced a new scheme for labeling a series of accounts that may claim a U.S. election victory before is declared by two of seven media outlets. The measure will include the accounts of both presidential candidates and their campaigns, respectively.

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"People on Twitter, including candidates for office, may not claim an election win before it is authoritatively called. To determine the results of an election in the US, we require either an announcement from state election officials or a public projection from at least two authoritative, national news outlets that make independent election calls," Twitter's representatives Content, Legal, Policy, Trust, and Safety explained in the company's blog.

"Tweets which include premature claims will be labeled and direct people to our official US election page," Twitter warned.

Likewise, the company confirms that it will delete all tweets that "mean to incite interference with the election process or with the implementation of election results, such as through violent action." The ban will be applied to Congressional races and the Presidential Election as well.

Today the company published a Tweet that reads "breathe" as anxiety grows ahead of November 3. Social media have been largely criticized by the public on their policies regarding fake news and hate messages. 

The labels may read "official sources called this election differently" or "official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted." The accounts that may be labeled will be accounts with U.S.2020 candidate flags, the U.S. accounts with more than 100.000 followers, and tweets that unleash a vast reaction such as 25.000 responses, whether like or retweets.

The company will consider "official sources for election results," the state election officials, as well as ABC News, Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Decision Desk HQ, Fox News, and NBC News, all of which have independent elections decision desks.