Google and Twitter have taken further steps in their attempts to clamp down on election misinformation. As reported by PC Mag, the two companies have stepped up their efforts to tackle misinformation before the election which is now just over a month away.
Twitter has already had issues with Trump and his administration over the way they handle fake news. Marking some of the President’s tweets as ‘manipulated media’ caused big problems for the company.
Generally speaking, Twitter has upped its labelling process so more tweets get labelled with misinformation tags. While Google has changed the way autocorrect works to prevent it from misleading users.
Twitter to more aggressively label fake news tweets
Twitter has stepped up its work to label tweets that contain misinformation. Twitter’s updated Civic Integrity Policy has now changed.
It now reads “You may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes.” This means users can no longer post or share content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process.
Given the importance of public conversation during events such as an election, Twitter has stepped up its systems to deal with it. Twitters says it believes that its the company’s responsibility to protect the integrity of those conversations. Ensuring that they aren’t interfered or tampered with.
Google also works to tackle election misinformation
On top of the actions Twitter has taken, Google has also stepped up its efforts to tackle election misinformation. The company has promised to remove autocorrect predictions “that could be interpreted as claims for or against any candidate or political party.”
The company also says it has removed predictions that could be interpreted as a claim about a political party. The important distinction to make is that Google will still support a lot of searches that have to do with the election and the voting process.
For example, Google will still push you to find your nearest polling station. Or on queries of how to register to vote as other social media companies have tried to assist with.
Overall, it is good to see tech companies taking steps to tackle election misinformation. For Twitter, it seems that they have stepped up existing systems to tackle the problem.
However, Google has found more innovative and creative ways to try and solve the problem of fake news. No doubt these measures will not totally solve the problem. However, hopefully, they will go some way to curbing the issues that have been seen in recent years.