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Big Tech giant Twitter is set to crack down on election information ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. According to the Twitter Safety account on the social media site, “Starting today, we’ll begin enforcing the Civic Integrity Policy in context of the US 2022 Midterms.”
The tweet continued, “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.”
Twitter has historically taken heat from conservatives and proponents of free speech for their stringent censorship policies, especially after they permanently suspended the account of a sitting United States president, Donald Trump, in 2021.
Rasmussen Reports, an independent electronic media company centered on collecting data on public opinions, offered their thoughts on how the “Civic Integrity Policy” would play out on the platform. They believe scientific polling on election integrity topics and evidence from official state election investigations will be permitted. However, they noted that evidence from “unofficial citizen investigations will be flagged – ex: True the Vote.”
Twitter’s Civic Integrity policy claims that they are helping to “protect the conversation on Twitter during elections or other civic processes” by “helping elevate credible information, promoting safety, collaborating with partners, and providing transparency along the way.”
Further, Twitter stated that its policy of “civic integrity” will be enforced “when the risk for manipulation or interference is highest – generally a few months before and a couple of weeks after election day, depending on local and external factors.”
Many people were hopeful that Twitter would become a platform centered on free speech this year when Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that he would be acquiring the company for $44 billion.
However, the billionaire announced in July that he was terminating the deal, pending a dispute between him and the social media company. Musk has alleged that Twitter is far more infested with bots and spam accounts than the website’s SEC filings show.
