Did Twitter disable sharing of a tweet from the Philadelphia GOP about "poll watchers"? No, that's not true: There is no warning tag on the code, nor has its visibility been altered. The "<blockquote" mass of code the Twitter user found and shared as evidence is the standard code by which any Tweet can be embedded in a blog post such as the one you are reading at this moment.
The claim originated in a tweet (archived here) where it was published by @PhillyGOP on November 3, 2020. The caption read:
An hour into Election Day and @Twitter is censoring this account. Guess we're doing something right!@realDonaldTrump @IvankaTrump @DonaldJTrumpJr @kimguilfoyle @JackPosobiec @jack @SohrabAhmari @nypost @TimRunsHisMouth @willchamberlain
This is what the post looked like on Twitter at the time of writing:
(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Tue Nov 3 14:15:58 2020 UTC)
As you can see, the tweet has not been labeled by Twitter in any way, nor has its sharing abilities been removed:
Certified Republican poll watchers are being kicked out of Mitchum Wilson Funeral Home, Wharton Rec Center, AND Greater Mt. Sinai Baptist Church. Watchers are told their certification doesn't mean anything. @CouncilmemberKJ , what's going on in your district?
-- Philly GOP (@PhillyGOP) November 3, 2020
The embed code for this tweet is as follows:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Certified Republican poll watchers are being kicked out of Mitchum Wilson Funeral Home, Wharton Rec Center, AND Greater Mt. Sinai Baptist Church. Watchers are told their certification doesn't mean anything. <a href="https://twitter.com/CouncilmemberKJ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CouncilmemberKJ</a> , what's going on in your district?</p>— Philly GOP (@PhillyGOP) <a href="https://twitter.com/PhillyGOP/status/1323610207054868481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 3, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The beginning of the embed code matches what @mctwinsmom tweeted as evidence of Twitter restricting sharing:
@mctwinsmom has since deleted this tweet.
Twitter does have the power to remove sharing abilities, but if Twitter takes this action it does not turn the tweet into the embed code and it looks drastically different from @mctwinsmom tweet. Last night, Twitter took this action on one of the President's tweets and as you can see, it does not look like @mctwinsmom's tweet:
The Supreme Court decision on voting in Pennsylvania is a VERY dangerous one. It will allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2020
