Pamela Cruz and Cristian Carlos. Peninsula 360 Press.
"Desperation instills courage in the coward," historian Thomas Fuller once said, and the U.S. presidential election has brought out the true substance of what Republican candidate Donald Trump is made of, who through his Twitter account - @realDonaldTrump - has expressed his mood in the face of what could be his defeat.
After this Tuesday afternoon, November 3, the counting of votes began in what is perhaps the closest electoral contest in the country's history, the national map began to be painted red and blue, and so did Twitter.
The reactions were moving forward, and with them the comments of Donald Trump, who is seeking to secure four more years of the presidential chair, everything was going well until Democratic candidate Joe Biden began to overcome it.
The Twitter guidelines began to be applied on election night, and while the social network is monitoring Trump's tweets, it is very likely that we will see very few of them spread not only in people's chronologies - tweets with this warning are limited to the person's profile - but for the Democratic candidate's followers.
It was at 11:49 p.m. on November 3 that the signs of anger began: "We are in a big way, but they are trying to STEAL the election. We will never let them do that. No votes can be cast after the polls are closed.
The reaction of the blue bird's social network was to put up a warning. "Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet has been objected to and may be misleading as to how to participate in an election or other civic process.".
Moreover, it would be the first wake-up call for an already obviously upset Donald Trump, who a few hours later would give a short speech to the voters to tell them that everything was going well, that he "had a great night" and that he had surely won. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Specifically, the social network establishes two cases for "conversation moderation" on Twitter about the U.S. elections; the first of the rules states that: "People on Twitter, including candidates for public office, cannot claim an election victory before it is confirmed by the authorities.
This is just one of the measures that Twitter implemented for the general elections in the United States; as stated in the article on its official blog since October 9, where it urged tweeters about the measures that would be taken to ensure that these publications become "de-amplified" or hidden. Twitter said these elections represent "a safe, fair and legitimate democratic process.
By 9:04 a.m. on Wednesday, November 4, Trump wrote: "Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key states, in almost every state controlled by the Democrats. Then, one by one, they began to magically disappear as surprise ballots were counted - VERY Odd, and the "pollsters" got it completely and historically wrong!
Again Twitter put a stop to it: the second to the account.
Only 13 minutes later (9:17 am) he had already written again on the web that, since four years ago, he has loved to make statements. "How is it that every time they count the postal vote dumps are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?
Doubt about what he had said just a few hours earlier, about doing very well and winning, began to take hold of him. By 9:35 a.m., the Republican said, "WHAT IS ALL THIS?" Thus, in capital letters. And Twitter gave him the third warning.
10:55 a.m.: "They're finding Biden votes everywhere - in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Too bad for our country."
The little blue bird was attentive to the statements and reminded the users: "Learn about security efforts in the 2020 U.S. elections".
Six minutes after his last tweet, Twitter hid one of his messages again, which reads: "They are working hard to make the 500,000 vote lead in Pennsylvania disappear - ASAP (as soon as possible). So are Michigan and others.
At 12:43 p.m., the U.S. president called it "terrible what is happening" when he said that "Michigan has found a way to get the wonderful young man, John James, out of the U.S. Senate at the polls.
Not ten minutes had passed when the U.S. president again tweeted, this time to declare himself the winner in Pennsylvania, but, in a more pessimistic tone, he referred to the statements made by Pennsylvania's "secretary of state," Kathy Boockvar, saying that there were still "millions of ballots to be counted.
Three hours and one minute later, at 3:53 p.m., two more messages appear on Donald Trump's account. In the first one, he had won the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina as well as Michigan. Twitter put on notice this message that the information at the time of publication had not been released by an official count.
Subsequently, Trump claims that it has been "widely" reported that "a large number of ballots" have been "secretly" turned over. Twitter hid the content of this particular tweet.
Realizing that both tweets had been flagged in the conversation between the Twitter rules and Trump's disinformation, he added almost two hours later that "the damage to the integrity of the system - election - was done and, with it, the presidential election - is something that must be discussed.
Subsequently, and to prevent the Twitter algorithm from attacking Trump, it retweeted the information from Breitbart News against the Pennsylvania Attorney General and irregular acts in the Detroit boxes.
Then, after a 12-hour break, Trump explodes, "STOP THE COUNTING!" was the first thing he said this Thursday morning, November 5.
At 9:09 a.m., another tweet from the governor followed, written in capital letters: "ANY VOTE THAT HAS ARRIVED AFTER THE DAY OF VOTING WILL NOT BE COUNTED!
Twitter puts a stop to it for the fourth time and calls on it to moderate itself, as its information is false and accurate: "some of the votes still need to be counted".
Luckily for the Republican, Pennsylvania joined the winning states. Twenty more points for Donald Trump and he celebrated via Twitter: "We won the state of Pennsylvania legally in a big way!
At 10:22 a.m., the President of the United States claims to have "sufficient evidence" that there is "fraud" in state elections and voter fraud; consequently, states in which Joe Biden has won will be legally challenged. "We will win! America first!" he said.
And, for the fifth time, Twitter puts a stop to it, as no authority has reported incidents that indicate either of these two crimes.
Not even half the day had passed when a "STOP THE FRAUD!" appeared on the account of the current US president, @realDonaldTrump. Could it be that he's given up?
In the case of Trump's tweets, the U.S. president is violating a very specific company rule that states that "we can now label tweets that violate our policies against misleading information about civic integrity.
Actually, the tweets are still there in case they want to be consulted via their original source; in this case, the profile of the person with "tagged" tweets; however, as we announced at the 10:50 p.m. pacific time cutIn the second instance, they declared that such tweets will not be taken into account within the algorithm of the recommendations in the personal chronologies.
In doing so, Twitter hopes "that this will further reduce the visibility of misleading information and encourage people to reconsider" the dissemination of messages that meet these characteristics. Finally, Twitter regrets the use of these measures and their implementation; however, it is justified on the grounds that it represents "a worthwhile sacrifice to encourage more thoughtful and explicit amplification".
