Twitter steps up efforts to combat misinformation ahead of midterms

Twitter is taking measures to combat misinformation ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, as announced in a Thursday blog post.

The social media giant said it would activate the Civic Integrity Policy.

The policy covers misleading information about elections and civic events, including false information about the election's outcome.

Users can see a prompt prior to liking or sharing labeled tweets if they are linked with credible information or helpful content.

The company noted that there were decreases in engagement with labeled tweets.

In cases where there is potential harm, the tweet may not be liked or shared.

Twitter will be vigilant, looking for fake accounts.

Other initiatives include prebunks that will get ahead of misleading narratives, state-specific event hubs that are rolled out nationwide, a dedicated look tab with national and local news, candidate account labels on candidate tweets and profile pages, and improved recommendations.

We found ways to prevent misleading Tweets from being recommended through notifications in the US and Brazil earlier this year. As a result of the experiment, impressions on misleading information dropped by 1.6 million per month, according to Twitter.

The tech company said it would apply additional proactive safeguards to the accounts of government officials, candidates and journalists, including increased login defenses, expedited account recovery support, and more sophisticated detection and alerts. As the election day nears, Twitter wrote that it would continue to share real-time information about its strategy.

Twitter plays a critical role in empowering democratic conversations, facilitating meaningful political debate, and providing information on civic participation not only in the U.S. but around the world. It concluded that people deserve to trust the content they encounter on Twitter.