SAN FRANCISCO, April 26, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Twitter announced plans to allow users to report tweets that they feel mislead voters or misstate facts concerning elections.
“Voting is a fundamental human right and the public conversation occurring on Twitter is never more important than during elections,” the social media giant stated this week in a blog post. “Any attempts to undermine the process of registering to vote or engaging in the electoral process is contrary to our company’s core values.”
Public conversation on Twitter is never more important than during elections. Today, we’re launching a new reporting feature to tackle deliberate attempts to mislead about voting. We’ll start with #LokSabhaElections2019 & #EUelections2019 https://t.co/rDdEwX3FcR pic.twitter.com/jrLOc3k1hC
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 24, 2019
Twitter launched the new policy in India on Thursday, according to BuzzFeed News. India is in the midst of its general election to decide on the members of the lower house of its parliament. Voting is held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19; the counting of the votes is scheduled to be complete by May 23.
Next week, the new Twitter feature will be made available to users in the European Union, where multinational elections will take place at the end of May.
According to Twitter, the new tool will allow reports on supposedly misleading tweets about:
- how to vote or how to register to vote for an upcoming election
- requirements and stipulations for voters regarding if they’re eligible to vote and what kind of identifications they may need
- the date and time of an election
Paul Joseph Watson of PrisonPlanet commented on Twitter that the social media platform may be guilty of “meddling” in the European election by suspending the accounts of certain candidates for European Parliament. Among those suspended is Tommy Robinson, a free -speech advocate and co-founder of the England Defense League, who has clashed with authorities in the past over his statements concerning political islam and censorship.
Twitter now brazenly suspending accounts of European Parliament candidates. Election meddling. https://t.co/OBUPdJaJNc
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) April 26, 2019
The process of reporting a supposedly deceptive tweet will be similar to how users report other tweets they find objectionable. By clicking “Report Tweet,” users will be offered several already familiar options, plus an additional option that allows users to indicate content that is supposedly “misleading about voting.”
Twitter remains in the sights of critics, who assert that it has effectively shut down Twitter users who hold conservative political views, especially in the United States. Twitter’s blog post did not announce whether the new feature will be offered in the U.S.