Twitter Moves to Fight Misleading Information Ahead of Midterm Elections; Experts Say Strategies Fall Short

Twitter has announced its plan to combat "harmful misleading information" on its platform in preparation for the midterm election.

The Blaze reported that part of its plan includes cracking down on misleading information by "labeling, deleting, and turning off the ability for tweets to be replied to, liked, and shared."

The social media company noted that it was preparing to impose its Civic Integrity Policy in the U.S. The same policy was implemented during other elections worldwide, including in the Philippines, Kenya, Australia, Brazil, and India.

Twitter said the new guidelines will assure that online discourse will not "manipulate or disrupt civic processes." The social media platform also warned that tweets may be deleted or receive a warning label if found violating the rules.

Twitter said imposing those actions would reduce the visibility of or turn off the ability to like, share, and reply to tweets that violate the platform's rules.

It also enforces a policy when deciding to either temporarily or permanently ban a user from the platform. Five strikes will result in permanent suspension, while four will lock a user out for a week, and three and two strikes will lock the user for 12 hours.

Twitter Against Misleading Information

Civil rights and online misinformation experts claimed that social media platforms are lacking in preventing the spread of false content.

According to Reuters, experts warned that misinformation could be "an even greater challenge" this year as candidates questioning the results of the 2020 election were running for office.

They added that divisive rhetoric was spreading after an FBI search of former President Donald Trump's home this week.

Evan Feeney, deputy senior campaign director at Color of Change advocating for the rights of Black Americans, said they were seeing "the same patterns playing out."

Researchers noted that Twitter and other social media platforms have an inconsistent record in labeling such misleading content.

Yosef Getachew, media and democracy program director at nonpartisan group Common Cause, said removing false and misleading posts should have more emphasis. Getachew added that pointing users to other sources "isn't enough."

Other Social Media Platforms During Elections

Facebook owner Meta is quietly addressing voting misinformation or foreign interference in the U.S. elections as the midterm vote nears.

Former Facebook policy director Katie Harbath, now the CEO of the tech and policy firm Anchor Change, said the social media platform was not talking about it.

However, Harbath noted that the best case scenario was they were still doing a lot behind the scenes, Associated Press reported.

Harbath said the worst case scenario was that they will pull back, and the public will not know how that was "going to manifest itself for the midterms on the platforms."

Meta has shut down an examination into how falsehoods were escalated in political ads on Facebook by indefinitely banishing the researchers from the site since last year.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: Twitter Taking Action to Monitor False Info Ahead of Midterm Elections - From WTHR