Twitter will start removing and labeling tweets that contain “disputed claims that could undermine faith” in the election process from September 17.
Twitter announced the changes as part of an update to its Civic Integrity Policy and wrote that examples of these claims include “unverified information about election rigging, ballot tampering, vote tallying, or certification of election results.”
In addition to censoring disputed claims that “could” undermine faith in the election, Twitter will also be removing and labeling “false or misleading information that causes confusion about the laws and regulations of a civic process, or officials and institutions executing those civic processes” and “misleading claims about the results or outcome of a civic process which calls for or could lead to interference with the implementation of the results of the process.”
Specifically, “claiming victory before election results have been certified” and “inciting unlawful conduct to prevent a peaceful transfer of power or orderly succession” will be prohibited under the latter part of these new rules.
Tweets that are labeled under these new rules will have “reduced visibility” across Twitter.
President Trump would seemingly be the highest-profile account to be affected by these changes as he has raised concerns about mail-in ballot tampering and the election being rigged multiple times on Twitter.
Several of his statements about mail-in-voting have already been fact-checked and hidden behind a warning label under Twitter’s existing rules.
This update is the latest of several recent Big Tech changes that censor posts that question or point to potential problems associated with the unprecedented processes that are being pushed during the 2020 US presidential election such as mass mail-in-voting and not having final election results on election night.
For example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced a series of measures to censor what his company deems to be election “misinformation” which include limiting the number of chats users can forward in Facebook Messenger, labeling the posts of candidates that attempt to declare victory early, and labeling posts that claim “lawful methods of voting will lead to fraud.”
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Big Tech companies have also confirmed that they’re colluding to discuss “scenario planning” related to election results and have partnered with the mainstream media to tip each other off when they find what they think is fake news.
Not only are these posts being censored but Big Tech companies are also actively promoting mail-in-voting and supporting the notion that there’s “nothing illegitimate” about having to wait days or weeks for final election results.
Facebook is pushing mail-in-voting via its Voting Information Center and even reportedly going to allow posts that encourage people to send in multiple copies of their mail-in ballots.
Meanwhile, Twitter is focusing its registration efforts for the 2020 election on mail-in and early voting and accused of selectively applying fact-checks to posts about mailboxes.
And Zuckerberg has stated in multiple interviews that Facebook is going to prepare the American people for a delay in the election results and make sure that people know this is normal.
