LONDON: Twitter Inc. on Thursday set out a plan to combat the spread of election misinformation that revives previous strategies, but civil and voting rights experts said it would fall short of what is needed to prepare for the upcoming US midterm elections.
The social media company said it will apply its civic integrity policy, introduced in 2018, to the Nov. 8 midterms, when numerous US Senate and House of Representatives seats will be up for election. The policy relies on labeling or removing posts with misleading content, focused on messages intended to stop voting or claims intended to undermine public confidence in an election.
In a statement, Twitter said it has taken numerous steps in recent months to “elevate reliable resources” about primaries and voting processes. Applying a label to a tweet also means the content is not recommended or distributed to more users.
The San Francisco-based company is currently in a legal battle with billionaire Elon Musk over his attempt to walk away from his $44-billion deal to acquire Twitter.
Musk has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” and has said Twitter posts should only be removed if there is illegal content, a view supported by many in the tech industry.
But civil rights and online misinformation experts have long accused social media and tech platforms of not doing enough to prevent the spread of false content, including the idea that President Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election.
They warn that misinformation could be an even greater challenge this year, as candidates who question the 2020 election are running for office, and divisive rhetoric is spreading following an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home earlier this week.
“We’re seeing the same patterns playing out,” said Evan Feeney, deputy senior campaign director at Color of Change, which advocates for the rights of Black Americans.
In the blog post, Twitter said a test of redesigned labels saw a decline in users’ retweeting, liking and replying to misleading content.
Researchers say Twitter and other platforms have a spotty record in consistently labeling such content.
In a paper published last month, Stanford University researchers examined a sample of posts on Twitter and Meta Platforms’ Facebook that altogether contained 78 misleading claims about the 2020 election. They found that Twitter and Facebook both consistently applied labels to only about 70 percent of the claims.
In a statement, Twitter said it has taken numerous steps in recent months to “elevate reliable resources” about primaries and voting processes.
Twitter’s efforts to fight misinformation during the midterms will include information prompts to debunk falsehoods before they spread widely online.
More emphasis should be placed on removing false and misleading posts, said Yosef Getachew, media and democracy program director at nonpartisan group Common Cause.
“Pointing them to other sources isn’t enough,” he said.
Experts also questioned Twitter’s practice of leaving up some tweets from world leaders in the name of public interest.
“Twitter has a responsibility and ability to stop misinformation at the source,” Feeney said, saying that world leaders and politicians should face a higher standard for what they tweet.
Twitter leads the industry in releasing data on how its efforts to intervene against misinformation are working, said Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School who studies online speech regulation.
Yet more than a year after soliciting public input on what the company should do when a world leader violates its rules, Twitter has not provided an update, she said.
Twitter plan to fight midterm misinformation falls short, voting rights experts say
https://arab.news/2z7bc
Twitter plan to fight midterm misinformation falls short, voting rights experts say
Saudi Media Forum urges ethical coverage as crises redefine Arab journalism
- Raw news without context can mislead audiences and distort credibility, experts say
RIYADH: Arab media was born in crisis and shaped by conflict rather than stability, Malik Al-Rougi, general manager of Thaqafeyah Channel, said during the Saudi Media Forum in Riyadh on Wednesday.
Al-Rougi was speaking during a panel titled “Media and Crises: The Battle for Awareness and the Challenges of Responsible Coverage,” which examined how news organizations across the region navigated credibility and professional standards amid fast-moving regional developments.
“Today, when you build a media organization and invest in it for many years, a single crisis can destroy it,” he said.
Referring to recent events, Al-Rougi said that he had witnessed news channels whose credibility “collapsed overnight.”
“In journalistic and political terms, this is not a process of news production. It is a process of propaganda production,” he said. “The damage caused by such a post … is enormous for an institution in which millions, perhaps billions, have been invested.”
When a media outlet shifts from professionalism and credibility toward “propaganda,” he added, it moves away from its core role.
“A crisis can work for you or against you,” Al-Rougi added. “When, in the heart of a crisis, you demonstrate high credibility and composure, you move light-years ahead. When you fail to adhere to ethical standards, you lose light-years as well.”
Abdullah Al-Assaf, professor of political media studies at Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University, said that in many crises across the Arab world, agendas and directives had often prevailed over professionalism.
“Credibility was buried,” he added.
Hasan Al-Mustafa, writer and researcher at Al-Arabiya channel, said that raw information could be subject to multiple interpretations if not placed within a proper political, security, historical or geographical context.
He added that such an approach was urgently needed during periods of political and security volatility in the Middle East.
When, in the heart of a crisis, you demonstrate high credibility and composure, you move light-years ahead. When you fail to adhere to ethical standards, you lose light-years as well.
Malik Al-Rougi Thaqafeyah, Channel general manager
“This objectivity, or this reliability, is a great responsibility,” Al-Mustafa said. “It is reflected not only in its impact on the audience, but also on the credibility of the content creator.”
Al-Mustafa warned against populism and haste in coverage, saying that they risked deepening crises rather than providing informed public perspectives.
He also said that competition with social media influencers had pushed some traditional outlets to imitate influencer-driven models instead of strengthening their own professional standards.
“Our media has been crisis-driven for decades,” he said, describing much of the region’s coverage as reactive rather than proactive.
During a separate panel titled “The Official Voice in the Digital Age: Strategies of Influence,” speakers discussed how rapid technological and social changes were reshaping the role of institutional spokespersons.
Abdulrahman Alhusain, official spokesperson of the Saudi Ministry of Commerce, said that the role was no longer limited to delivering statements or reacting to events.
“Today, the spokesperson must be the director of the scene — the director of the media narrative,” he said.
Audiences, he added, no longer accept isolated pieces of information unless they were presented within a clear narrative and structure.
“In the past, a spokesperson was expected to deliver formal presentations. Today, what is required is dialogue. The role may once required defense, but now it must involve discussion, the exchange of views, and open, candid conversation aimed at development — regardless of how harsh the criticism may be.”
He said that spokespersons must also be guided by data, digital indicators and artificial intelligence to understand public opinion before speaking.
“You must choose the right timing, the right method and the right vocabulary. You must anticipate a crisis before it happens. That is your role.”
Abdullah Aloraij, general manager of media at the Riyadh Region Municipality, said that the most important skill for a spokesperson today was the ability to analyze and monitor public discourse.
“The challenge is not in transferring words, but in transferring understanding and impact in the right way,” he said.
