Twitter Looks to Prevent a Disinformation Free-for-All Ahead of 2022 Midterms

Twitter will apply its Civic Integrity Policy(Opens in a new window) to the 2022 midterms.

The company expanded(Opens in a new window) the Civic Integrity Policy ahead of the 2020 presidential election to “further protect against content that could suppress the vote and help stop the spread of harmful misinformation that could compromise the integrity of an election or other civic process.” Now it’s looking to apply those same measures to the 2022 midterms being held in November.

Tweet(Opens in a new window)

“Twitter is the place to find real-time, reliable information about the 2022 midterms–whether you’re looking for breaking news from reporters, information on voting, or policy positions from candidates,” Twitter says(Opens in a new window). “We aim to enable healthy civic conversation on Twitter, while ensuring people have the context they need to make informed decisions about content they encounter.”

The company plans to roll out new labels for the accounts of people seeking office, introduce a dedicated Explore tab for the midterm elections, and work to prevent tweets containing misleading information from being recommended to more users via push notifications.

Twitter is also reintroducing “prebunks” (preemptive debunks) to “get ahead of misleading narratives on Twitter, and to proactively address topics that may be the subject of misinformation.” That means it will “place prompts directly on people’s timelines in the US and in Search when people type related terms, phrases, or hashtags” in the coming months.

It’s also looking to protect the accounts of “government officials, candidates for office, journalists, and more ahead of the midterms.” Twitter says it will be improving detections for potentially malicious activity, rolling out “increased login defenses,” and introducing “expedited account recovery support to ensure account security issues are resolved quickly.”

This varied response—Twitter is essentially handling everything from misinformation and disinformation to account security and abuses of its platform—shows just how much work it needs to do ahead of an election. The company isn’t just dealing with a capricious, poop-emoji-flinging billionaire; it’s attempting to prevent its service from undermining the election process.

No pressure.