Facebook and Instagram are keeping users updated about the U.S. presidential elections by notifying them on the apps that the winner of the elections has not yet been determined.
Noticeable pop-ups can be seen at the top of the news feed on both the apps. The pop-up notification says ‘'Votes are being counted’' and it is also directing users to other election resources within the apps.
The entire message in the notification reads “The winner of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election has not been projected yet. See more updates and learn what to expect as the election process continues.”. Both Facebook and Instagram have used the same language in the message.
Moreover, both the platforms are updating the notifications in terms of their recency via a timestamp, which is important because the votes are still in the process of being counted and to avoid misunderstandings about premature election victories.
Facebook said that it specifically decided to add the notifications after President Trump prematurely claimed election victory early Wednesday morning. Moreover, as per the company’s labelling policy, posts from both the President and VP Biden were labelled.
The timestamps in the notifications will also prevent catching issues, like the one that happened on November 3 when some users saw a notification on Instagram that said, “Tomorrow is election day’', when actually the election day had already arrived. With timestamps, the recency of the notifications can be maintained without causing any confusion to the users.
