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Here’s how some of the biggest social platforms are updating their policies ahead of the US midterm elections on 8 November.
The United States is headed for midterm elections in less than three months and social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and TikTok are gearing up for it.
With much of the public discussion around global elections happening online these days, social media platforms have a unique responsibility among tech companies to provide a level playing field and ensure no foul play is involved.
However, they have also been subject to controversy and criticism for alleged policy failures in the run-up to elections and the resultant influence they can have on voting patterns, such as allowing misinformation, misleading ad campaigns and external influences on their platforms.
As voters in the US head in for the first major election in two years on 8 November, here are some ways in which social media companies are preparing.
Meta
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is going to focus its attention on cracking down on misinformation around voting logistics and not allowing new political ads in the week leading up to election day.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said that the company aims to be “consistent with the policies and safeguards” it had in place during the 2020 US presidential election, when Facebook first decided to ban political ads in the week before voters took to the polls.
“This includes advanced security operations to fight foreign interference and domestic influence campaigns, our network of independent fact-checking partners, our industry-leading transparency measures around political advertising and pages, as well as new measures to help keep poll workers safe.”
The company has employed “hundreds of people across more than 40 teams” to prepare Meta social apps Facebook and Instagram ahead of the midterms, Clegg said. He added that Meta spent around $5bn globally on safety and security last year alone.
Meta will remove any posts that mislead people on where, when and how to vote, or those that call for violence based on the voting or election outcome – as was the case in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s loss in the last presidential election.
Clegg said the company is working with 10 external fact-checking partners, including five Spanish-language organisations, to review posts and label them if they’re misleading.
TikTok
TikTok has a dedicated in-app Elections Centre that went live yesterday (17 August). It will give the platform’s approximately 80m users in the US access to state-specific information on the elections, such as how to register and vote as well as the location of polling stations.
Much like Meta, TikTok is focusing significant attention on curbing the spread of misinformation on its platform, building on lessons from 2020. This includes tackling misinformation around how to vote, harassment of election workers, deepfakes of political candidates and calls for violence.
Unlike Meta, TikTok has a longstanding policy banning all political ads on its platform, including both paid ads and sponsored and branded content from creators.
It will add labels to content identified as being related to the 2022 midterms as well as content from accounts belonging to governments, politicians and political parties in the US.
It will work with fact-checking organisations to assess the accuracy of content and use a combination of technology and human intervention for content moderation. While content is being fact-checked or when content can’t be substantiated, videos won’t be promoted on the platform.
As the midterms approach, Twitter announced last week that it will apply its civil integrity policy introduced in 2018 to label or remove tweets with misleading content that can have a harmful effect on the elections.
According to the policy, this includes misleading information about how to vote, content intended to intimidate or dissuade people from voting, and claims intended to undermine public confidence in an election – including false information about the outcome of the election.
“Tweets with this content may be labelled with links to credible information or helpful context, and Twitter will not recommend or amplify this content in areas of the product where Twitter makes recommendations,” the company wrote in a statement.
Twitter, which is dealing with uncertainty regarding Elon Musk’s takeover, said it will prohibit “fake accounts that misrepresent affiliation to a candidate or elected official” and will also look ensure the safety of election workers online.
Twitter’s election prep also includes a dedicated tab that will feature national news in both English and Spanish by reputable news sources, localised news by state, and voter education public service announcements using info from non-partisan organisations.
“Twitter plays a critical role in empowering democratic conversations, facilitating meaningful political debate, and providing information on civic participation – not only in the US, but around the world,” the company said.
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