With fewer than two weeks until the midterm elections, roughly 20 workers from across Twitter have volunteered to assist the internal "Election Squad" of the social network in enforcing its rules at a pivotal time in American politics. The volunteers received intensive training this week, covering the fundamentals of how to identify propaganda-sending bots, identify election misinformation, and report potential rule violations to Twitter's policy staff.
As the company's overworked content moderators work around the clock for a week before and after the vote to stem the tide of viral falsehoods, intimidation campaigns, and foreign influence operations, the call for volunteers has been part of an all-hands-on-deck strategy for major elections since 2018.
However, the corporation is in worse shape than ever during this election cycle, which raises the possibility that shady political operatives will be able to utilise the platform to mislead voters or cast doubt on the validity of the results. Since a new CEO took over, Twitter has endured a year of administrative upheaval; hundreds of staff are said to have departed the firm, and a high-ranking whistleblower has warned that the company lacks the means to globally enforce its own election regulations.
The fact that Twitter will likely be acquired by billionaire Elon Musk for $44 billion by Friday will only increase the confusion. He has stated that he will eliminate up to 75% of Twitter's workforce, scale back the company's content moderation efforts, and reinstall some of its most prominent distributors of election misinformation.
Eddie Perez, former product director for Twitter's civic integrity, which covers its election regulations, stated, "Given the fast surge in the magnitude of disinformation since 2020, it's reasonable to worry if they can stay up." Perez now serves on the board of the OSET Institute, a nonpartisan organisation dedicated to election security and integrity.
A spokesman for Twitter, Katie Rosborough, confirmed the request for volunteers ahead of the midterm elections and said that the business has previously done the same during the 2018 Brazilian elections as well as the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
People use Twitter to find up-to-date, trustworthy information on elections, and Rosborough stated that by investing in this project, they can see how seriously they are taking that role.
When The Post enquired about Musk's plans for the first few days of ownership, Musk did not react. He spoke with executives during his visit to Twitter's San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday, and he will likely address workers on Friday. He has continually attacked the corporation since announcing his takeover offer for what he perceives as an excessive censorship of online speech.
Musk has also hinted that he would relax the company's restriction on former president Donald Trump, whose erratic tweets could, on any given day, completely alter the political landscape of the nation.
Twitter has had a significant impact on world politics throughout the Arab Spring, the Trump administration, #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter movements. This is surprising given the company's relative size in comparison to rivals like Meta and Alphabet. Like its rivals, Twitter began investing more heavily in content moderation following revelations in 2017 of Russian influence campaigns that used social platforms to inflame societal conflicts in the United States ahead of the 2016 presidential election. It has tapped its employees’ zeal to “protect the conversation” around major political events.
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