Twitter to remove or label tweets intended to undermine U.S. election

Twitter on Thursday announced a new policy to remove or label any tweets containing false information that are intended to undermine public confidence in elections and civic processes, including the 2020 U.S. election. 

The company said this will include:

• Tweets containing false or misleading information that cause confusion about the laws of the election or the officials executing those civic processes.
• It will also include tweets with disputed claims, such as unverified information about election rigging, ballot tampering, vote tallying or the certification of election results.
• Tweets with misleading claims about the results of the election which could interfere with the implementation of those results. This includes tweets claiming victory before election results have been verified or tweets inciting unlawful conduct to prevent a peaceful transfer of power.

Twitter emphasized that these policies will be “applied equally and judiciously for everyone.” Already, President Donald Trump has used social media to sow doubts about the election, making unfounded claims that mail-in ballots lead to voter fraud and encouraging people to vote twice, which is illegal. 

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The company said it will begin exercising this policy starting next week. The new policy comes after a series of similar changes last week by Facebook.