By Eric King
Twitter have released a new page focused on the US midterm elections. The new page enables users to view supposedly relevant tweets through two tabs — “Latest” and “Top Commentary.” The initiative is all good except that it is already attracting the undesirable interference of trolls.
The new page which is clearly meant to be a place for users to find more information about the upcoming election has been featuring tweets from conspiracy theorists, people pushing disinformation and what appear to be bot accounts, BuzzFeed News reported.
Some of the tweets are from suspicious accounts with only a handful of followers . Others are associated with divisive figures, like Dinesh D’Souza and Bill Mitchell, who critics say are susceptible to promoting anti-Democrat conspiracy theories. Twitter have a huge task to address in the midst of a crisis they cannot afford to allow escalate. Their platform will naturally be utilized by those with political interests in the midterm elections, but disinformation will be a violation of its policies.
How will twitter monitor the multiple accounts on its site during the midterm elections? Twitter, whose functional mechanisms do not allow users to edit a tweet containing errors, has work to do. Its priority should be in setting up a technological feature that allows it to spot corrupt information and at quickly to correct it.
Tweets with hashtags like #BuildTheWall and #JobsNotMobs are coming from pro-Trump accounts, while left-leaning hashtags like #BlueWave are also being surfaced. Some of the tweets in the midterms page also say things that are entirely false, such as a retweet from MAGAcaine Mitch that claims “there are reporters now threatening to dox private citizens on Twitter.”
Mitchell claimed Democrats paid for the Honduran caravan in order to “create another ‘separating families’ crisis” ahead of the election. Another tweet falsely claimed that Marc Molinaro, a Republican candidate for New York governor, had dropped out of the race, while another said Kid Rock was about to become a Michigan senator.
A few others perpetuated claims about illegal voting and some tweets included on the page came from partisan accounts without followers or profile pictures, suggesting that they’re automated. And in the California section of the page, BuzzFeed News also discovered a tweet from Tomi Lahren referring to the lieutenant governor of California and current candidate for governor as “Greasy Gavin Newsom.”
Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter are under are conscious of the high expectation for them to clean up their networks and feature credible content from genuine sources. And while many tweets featured on Twitter’s new midterms page are verifiable journalists, but there are also quite a few from known conspiracy theorists; users promoting disinformation about candidates, including accounts with few followers, no profile photos, and low tweet counts. Accounts like those reveal symptoms of bot or spam accounts.
The responsibility to correct this disturbing build up false on none else but twitter themselves. Despite the several twitter accounts that exists, twitter bosses will have to find a way to ensure they keep all twitter accounts in check, and not hesitate to remove those that contaminate the platform with conspiracy theories that have a political agenda.