Twitter is at it again. They just announced steps to “protect” the midterm elections.
According to their Twitter thread, “Starting today, we’ll begin enforcing the Civic Integrity Policy in context of the US 2022 midterms. This means we’ll take action against misleading claims about the voting process, misleading content intended to intimidate or dissuade people from participating in the election, or misleading claims that may undermine public confidence in elections outcomes.
The Civic Integrity Policy covers the most common types of harmful misleading information about elections and civic events, such as: claims about how to participate in a civic process like how to vote, misleading content intended to intimidate or dissuade people from participating in the election, and misleading claims intended to undermine public confidence in an election – including false information about the outcome of the election. Tweets with this content may be labeled with links to credible information or helpful context, and Twitter will not recommend or amplify this content in areas of the product where Twitter makes recommendations. People on Twitter will see a prompt prior to liking or sharing labeled tweets, and in cases where there is potential for harm associated with the false or misleading claim, the Tweet may not be liked or shared to prevent the spread of the misleading information.
“The mission of our civic integrity work is to protect the conversation on Twitter during elections or other civic processes,” they say on their website.
So nice of them to want to “protect” our conversation so that we act in accordance with what they believe and the proper narrative.
So in accordance with their effort, since they want to protect the integrity of elections, I have some things they may want to see to help in their effort.
When can we be assured that all the various Democratic lies and misleading claims will be flagged? Notice even now, those are not flagged despite being demonstrably false.
We remember when Twitter put its thumb on the scale during the election in 2016 and prevented people from sharing the Hunter Biden story, even suspending accounts that did so. They even suspended the official NY Post account. Jack apologized after that and said that was wrong. So can we expect that they’re gearing up again? Here’s a thought for them. How about protecting the conversation by staying the heck out of it and allowing people to decide for themselves?