Twitter plan to fight midterm misinformation falls short

The social media company said it will apply its civic integrity policy, introduced in 2018

Twitter Inc on Thursday set out a plan to combat the spread of election misinformation that revives previous strategies, but civil and voting rights experts said it would fall short of what is needed to prepare for the upcoming U.S. midterm elections, Qazet.az reports.

The social media company said it will apply its civic integrity policy, introduced in 2018, to the Nov. 8 midterms, when numerous U.S. Senate and House of Representatives seats will be up for election. The policy relies on labeling or removing posts with misleading content, focused on messages intended to stop voting or claims intended to undermine public confidence in an election.

In a statement, Twitter said it has taken numerous steps in recent months to "elevate reliable resources" about primaries and voting processes. Applying a label to a tweet also means the content is not recommended or distributed to more users.

The San Francisco-based company is currently in a legal battle with billionaire Elon Musk over his attempt to walk away from his $44-billion deal to acquire Twitter.