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An article in The New York Times business section Tuesday detailed efforts by Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube to censor what it calls “political misinformation” and “disinformation” in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections.
The article, titled “To Fight Election Fraud, Social Media Companies Ready for New Playbook,” was written by Stewart A. It’s Thompson.
“The polling dashboards are back online, the fact-checking teams are back together, and warnings about misleading content are once again cluttering news feeds,” Thompson began.
“As the United States marches into another election season, social media companies are steeling themselves for political misinformation,” he continued.
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According to Thompson, the big tech companies “are announcing a series of election tools and strategies that are similar to their approaches over the years.”
Facebook will reportedly become more “targeted and strategic” in its warning accounts and “expand its efforts to address harassment and threats targeting election officials and poll workers.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously acknowledged that political bias played a role in the company’s censorship policies.
Thompson’s report says Twitter is “trying to navigate difficult free-speech issues,” and that Elon Musk has “made free speech a major criticism of his attempts to buy the company this year.”
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Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks on a laptop computer during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Thursday, March 25, 2021, in Tiskillwa, Illinois, U.S.
(Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Musk has since tried to pull out of his deal to buy Twitter, citing what he says are financial and user misrepresentations by the company. Twitter sued Musk to follow through with the purchase, and the two sides are actively involved in litigation.
Thompson did not address Twitter and Facebook’s ill-advised decision to censor Hunter Biden’s laptop story in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election in the New York Post over false allegations that the story was Russian disinformation. He also made no bones about concerns raised by conservatives about political bias being taken by big social media companies.
Chinese-owned TikTok, which has repeatedly allowed the Chinese government to access US users’ data, is taking steps to censor political content before the 2022 deadline. According to Thompson, TikTok will “continue its fact-checking program starting in 2020, which prevents some videos from being recommended until verified by external fact-checkers.”
In this photo example, a man looks at his Twitter account on a smartphone screen on May 08, 2021.
(Matt Cardi/Getty Images)
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Meanwhile, Thompson criticized YouTube for not doing enough to at least historically combat misinformation. “Video streaming has played a major role in spreading massive amounts of political misinformation,” he lamented.
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