After new Twitter owner Elon Musk fired a significant portion of the company's staff, election researchers are bracing for a slew of misinformation to hit the platform ahead of the midterms, Reuters reported Tuesday.
These researchers studied the dialogue on Twitter and found that "threats, offensive language, and false rumors of election fraud have been circulating widely," per Reuters. One common narrative stated that delays in vote counting are a result of fraud, a notion FactCheck.org reported as false.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Littlewood added, "We know that disinformation will spike after Election Day." While Twitter users are able to report false or misleading posts, Littlewood said the company's layoffs had already caused a "big slowdown" in responses to those reports.
Twitter responded in a statement, "It has taken Twitter much longer than normal to adjudicate if these tweets violate their policies." Per Reuters, tweets that were reported on Friday were still marked as "under review" as of Monday.
Eddie Perez, a board member of the election security nonprofit OSET Institute, also told Reuters that Musk's urging of a GOP-led Congress was also causing divisions. "If the billionaire owner of Twitter is supporting one side, users may give credence to false claims simply because they may be aligned with his apparent preferences," Perez said.
-
Pipe bombs: The end of a conspiracy theory?Feature Despite Bongino and Bondi’s attempt at truth-telling, the MAGAverse is still convinced the Deep State is responsible
-
The robot revolutionFeature Advances in tech and AI are producing android machine workers. What will that mean for humans?
-
Health: Will Kennedy dismantle U.S. immunization policy?Feature ‘America’s vaccine playbook is being rewritten by people who don’t believe in them’
-
Senate votes down ACA subsidies, GOP alternativeSpeed Read The Senate rejected the extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits, guaranteeing a steep rise in health care costs for millions of Americans
-
Abrego García freed from jail on judge’s orderSpeed Read The wrongfully deported man has been released from an ICE detention center
-
Indiana Senate rejects Trump’s gerrymander pushSpeed Read The proposed gerrymander would have likely flipped the state’s two Democratic-held US House seats
-
Democrat files to impeach RFK Jr.Speed Read Rep. Haley Stevens filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
-
$1M ‘Trump Gold Card’ goes live amid travel rule furorSpeed Read The new gold card visa offers an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for $1 million
-
US seizes oil tanker off VenezuelaSpeed Read The seizure was a significant escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
-
Judge orders release of Ghislaine Maxwell recordsSpeed Read The grand jury records from the 2019 prosecution of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public
-
Miami elects first Democratic mayor in 28 yearsSpeed Read Eileen Higgins, Miami’s first woman mayor, focused on affordability and Trump’s immigration crackdown in her campaign
