Twitter announced this Thursday that it will activate several functions to combat disinformation in the face of the partial legislative elections that will be held in the United States in November, with new features that aim to facilitate access to “reliable” news and “correct” data about the process. .
The social network has faced accusations that it did not do enough to curb disinformation in the last US presidential election, during which it labeled several tweets by former President Donald Trump as misleading and ultimately suspended its account after the violent attack on Capitol Hill. January 2021.
The company said it will impose the “civic integrity policy” that it has applied in other elections and that includes labels in tweets if it believes that its content is false or misleading, with a redesign that makes users share fewer messages and are more interested to clarify them, as he observed in his trial period.
“To make it easier to find trustworthy news and accurate information about engaging in the civic process,” Twitter will include prompts to “get ahead of misleading narratives” directly in users’ timelines and also in the search form, when people type in key words or phrases.
In addition, a specific tab will be enabled to “explore” national news in English and Spanish from “reputable” media that will have been chosen by a team of the company, resources for the residents of each state and public announcements for voters created from information of non-governmental entities.
The social network added that it is going to fine-tune the recommendations it makes to its users through notifications to prevent misleading tweets from spreading, and is also reinforcing the protection and security of the accounts of government officials, election candidates and journalists.