Twitter tightens rules before election

Twitter announced a series of policy updates Friday aimed at countering the potential spread of misinformation around this year’s elections.

Starting Oct. 20, users will be asked to add their own comment before retweeting a post, essentially slowing down users from amplifying tweets. That change will last at least through Election Day.

Twitter will also change what shows up on timelines and in trends, removing posts that are recommended from people who users don’t follow.

Trends will only be surfaced in the “For You” tab if they have additional context attached to them.

“Twitter has a critical role to play in protecting the integrity of the election conversation, and we encourage candidates, campaigns, news outlets and voters to use Twitter respectfully and to recognize our collective responsibility to the electorate to guarantee a safe, fair and legitimate democratic process this November,” Twitter executives Vijaya Gadde and Kayvon Beykpour wrote in a blog post.

Twitter will also add new labels to hide misleading tweets from popular accounts. If users try to share content that Twitter has flagged as false, a notice will warn them that they are about to share inaccurate information.

The platform further clarified its policy around premature election victory declarations, which will include labels and direct users to Twitter’s official election page.

Any tweet related to the election that encourages interference in the voting process, especially if it includes calls to violence, will be removed.

Most of the changes will be temporary, ending at some point after the election is called.

The new safeguards come as internet platforms try to avoid a repeat of 2016, where many users were able to spread dangerous content with ease.

Facebook has pledged not to accept political ads in the week before the election, or run any of those ads immediately after polls close. Facebook does not fact-check political ads.

Google has said it will place a similar freeze on election-related ads after Nov. 3.