Shortly after the Presidential debate ended, several false accounts about Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden continued to make rounds in social media.
The said false stories included misleading ads by the Trump campaign uploaded on Facebook, and another was a video that became viral in video sharing platform TikTok.
In the Facebook ads promoted by the Trump campaign was a false story which claimed that Biden was wearing an earpiece during the debate. The said claims gained a lot of traction even after the event.
Moreover, the ad by the Trump campaign called on people to check the ears of Biden, while another ad asked "Why won't Sleepy Joe commit to an earpiece inspection?"
The said video was viewed at least 250,000 times and was said to have been promoted mainly to people who are over 55 in Florida and Texas.
According to the Business Insider, the goal of the ad is to imply that Biden used an earpiece during the debate so that someone could give him information amid the event.
Moreover, videos claiming that Biden was wearing a wire in order to "cheat" during the debate gained more than 500,000 views on Tiktok last Wednesday. In one of the videos, Biden had his hands inside his suit, while another video had an arrow pointing to his tie. However, none of the videos clearly showed Biden wearing any kind of wired device.
Read also: Highlights of First US Presidential Debate Kicks Off With Trump and Biden in Heated Arguments
Tech Companies Struggle with Misinformation
Tech companies, including social media websites, have been on high-alert with misinformation as the election nears. Struggling with misinformation for a very long time, Twitter and Facebook executives even had trends, hashtags, and other accounts checked in order to make sure that no one breaks the companies' rules. The review was done by both software and humans.
In addition, the companies are also pushing the spread of factual and accurate information especially on the process of getting registered to vote.
However, despite the efforts of these companies, the latest false claims that circulated are proof that they are still struggling with filtering these information.
Facebook also announced that it would ban the release of new ads in the week preceding the election. It also stated on Wednesday that the legitimacy of the polls would be undermined if misinformation continues to spread.
On the other hand, Twitter had moved to remove around 130 accounts which attempted to spread disinformation during Tuesday's event. Twitter stated that they got a tip from the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the accounts which appeared to have originated from Iran.
Meanwhile, TikTok told The Washington Post that it would be taking down the videos of Biden. Moreover, the company stated that it does not tolerate misinformation which is aimed at misleading the community about civic processes and the elections.
In addition, in a rare move, Facebook took down the ads by the Trump campaign which contained unproven claims that say accepting refugees would increase the risk of the pandemic. The ad had more than 30 versions circulating on the social media platform.
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