Twitter announced it is expanding its policies “to further protect the civic conversation” by placing messages above users’ feeds debunking false information about mail-in voting and the results of the election.
Announced on Monday, Twitter is calling these messages “pre-bunk” notifications because they won’t be a response to a specific tweet that contains misinformation, according to NBC News.
“People rely on Twitter for accurate, credible information about how to vote, and the latest election news, and we believe it’s critical that we make it easy for people to find that information,” a spokesman told the Washington Examiner. “We also know that people may intentionally or unintentionally spread misleading information about these topics, which we have expanded our policies to address.”
“Twitter will begin to show a series of prompts to everyone located in the US that preemptively address topics that are likely to be the subject of election misinformation,” the spokesman added. “These prompts will alert people that they may encounter misinformation, and provide them with credible, factual information on the subject.”
There will be two pre-bunk notifications. The first, released Monday, is a notification about voting by mail. “Election experts confirm that voting by mail is safe and secure, even with an increase in mail in ballots. Even so, you might encounter unconfirmed claims that voting by mail leads to election fraud ahead of the 2020 US elections,” the notification reads, with a prompt to “find out more.”
The second notification, expected Wednesday, will address misinformation about the election results, which could be delayed because of the increased amount of mail-in voting.
The prompts will be available in 42 different languages and will appear above the timeline of everyone with a Twitter account in the United States. It will also appear in the search section where people type related terms, phrases, or hashtags.
The notifications are the latest in a series of actions taken by Twitter ahead of the election. Earlier this month, Twitter announced that it would introduce “speed bumps” in the retweeting process in an effort to make people less likely to share contested information. Twitter now prompts every retweet to be a quote tweet instead.
“People who go to Retweet will be brought to the Quote Tweet composer where they’ll be encouraged to comment before sending their Tweet,” legal lead Vijaya Gadde and product lead Kayvon Beykpour wrote in a blog post on Friday. “Though this adds some extra friction for those who simply want to Retweet, we hope it will encourage everyone to not only consider why they are amplifying a Tweet, but also increase the likelihood that people add their own thoughts, reactions and perspectives to the conversation.”
Concerning Election Day, Twitter said that it will label or remove tweets that are false, misleading, or “intended to undermine public confidence in an election or other civic process,” according to its updated civic integrity policy. Twitter will remove any tweets that “encourage others to interfere with the election process.”
