For months, activists have urged tech companies to fight the spread of falsehoods purporting that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — warning that such disinformation could delegitimize the 2022 midterms, in which all seats in the House of Representatives and more than a third of the Senate is up for grabs.
Yet social media giants are pushing forward with a familiar playbook to police misinformation this electoral cycle, even as false claims that the last presidential election was fraudulent continue to plague their platforms.
Facebook is again opting not to remove some election fraud claims and may instead use labels to redirect users to accurate information about the election. Twitter says it will apply misinformation labels or remove posts that undermine confidence in the electoral process such as unverified election-rigging claims about the 2020 race that violate its rules. (The company didn’t specify when it would remove offending tweets but said labeling reduces its visibility.)
This stands in contrast to platforms, such as YouTube and TikTok, which are banning and removing 2020 election rigging claims, according recently released election plans.
Misinformation experts warn the strictness of the companies’ policies and how well they enforce their rules could make the difference between a peaceful transfer of power and an electoral crisis.
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