Misinformation on midterm elections likely to run rampant on Twitter, report says
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.
-
Ultimate pasta alla NormaThe Week Recommends White miso and eggplant enrich the flavour of this classic pasta dish
-
Death in Minneapolis: a shooting dividing the USIn the Spotlight Federal response to Renee Good’s shooting suggest priority is ‘vilifying Trump’s perceived enemies rather than informing the public’
-
5 hilariously chilling cartoons about Trump’s plan to invade GreenlandCartoons Artists take on misdirection, the need for Greenland, and more
-
‘The security implications are harder still to dismiss’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
The billionaires’ wealth tax: a catastrophe for California?Talking Point Peter Thiel and Larry Page preparing to change state residency
-
Hegseth moves to demote Sen. Kelly over videospeed read Retired Navy fighter pilot Mark Kelly appeared in a video reminding military service members that they can ‘refuse illegal orders’
-
Trump says US ‘in charge’ of Venezuela after Maduro grabSpeed Read The American president claims the US will ‘run’ Venezuela for an unspecified amount of time, contradicting a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio
-
Biggest political break-ups and make-ups of 2025The Explainer From Trump and Musk to the UK and the EU, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a round-up of the year’s relationship drama
-
Bari Weiss’ ‘60 Minutes’ scandal is about more than one reportIN THE SPOTLIGHT By blocking an approved segment on a controversial prison holding US deportees in El Salvador, the editor-in-chief of CBS News has become the main story
-
CBS pulls ‘60 Minutes’ report on Trump deporteesSpeed Read An investigation into the deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s notorious prison was scrapped
-
Trump administration posts sliver of Epstein filesSpeed Read Many of the Justice Department documents were heavily redacted, though new photos of both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton emerged
