Twitter to Bar Election-Win Claims Before Races Are ‘Authoritatively Called’

Twitter won’t allow anyone to use the platform “to manipulate or interfere in elections,” blogged the company Friday. People on Twitter, including candidates for office, will be barred from claiming an election win “before it is authoritatively called,” it said. “We require either an announcement from state election officials, or a public projection from at least two authoritative, national news outlets that make independent election calls.” Starting this week, when someone tries to retweet a post labeled as containing “misleading information,” they will see a prompt “pointing them to credible information about the topic before they are able to amplify it,” said the company. “Tweets with labels are already de-amplified through our own recommendation systems and these new prompts will give individuals more context.” Facebook announced its own election safeguards earlier in the week, stipulating its policy for contested races. If the candidate declared the winner by major media outlets “is contested by another candidate or party, we will show the name of the declared winning candidate with notifications at the top of Facebook and Instagram, as well as label posts from presidential candidates, with the declared winner’s name and a link to the Voting Information Center,” it said. If a candidate declares “premature victory,” Facebook will add to the notifications that “counting is still in progress and no winner has been determined.”