Twitter rolls out feature letting users report election misinformation

Twitter is rolling out a feature allowing users to flag posts they believe contain misinformation about elections ahead of November, a spokesperson told The Hill Thursday.

Carlos Monje, the platform’s director of public policy, said in a statement that the new tool is part of a broader effort to stop the spread of content that might mislead people about elections.

“As caucuses and primaries for the presidential election get underway, we’re building on our efforts to protect the public conversation,” he said. “We’ve turned on a tool for key moments of the 2020 U.S. election that enables people to report deliberately misleading information about how to participate in an election or other civic event.”

Content flagged by users during “key moments” of the election cycle will then be reviewed using Twitter’s rules, which ban content that may mislead voters or suppress turnout.

The tool has previously been used in elections outside of the U.S.

“This reporting flow has been an important aspect of our efforts since early 2019 to protect the health of the conversation for elections around the globe, specifically in India, the UK, and across the EU,” Monje said.

Social media platforms have been under increasing scrutiny for their handling of political content since the 2016 election.

Twitter has taken a comparatively hard-line stance on issues affecting elections and in the fall of last year banned all political advertising on the platform.