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Twitter‘s attempting to combat the spread of election misinformation, just as the 2020 U.S. Presidential Race is starting to heat up. Today it rolls out a new reporting option that specifically targets such falsifications. This option essentially allows users to report things like voter suppression, which is probably going to be critical in the months to come.
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The new feature, first spotted by Politico, adds a new option to the menu when you try to report a tweet: essentially, you can now report a tweet that contains misleading information of a political nature. Twitter‘s already revealed its intention to ban political ads this year, and now it’s offering users the chance to help keep political conversation on the platform on the straight and narrow.
Here’s how to use it.
When you come across a tweet you think is misleading, either by offering misinformation about voting or it impersonates a political party in someway, you use the report option. This can be found in Twitter’s drop-down menu on the top-right of the tweet. (Note, the author doesn’t think the tweet or the account pictured is misleading. This is just for the purposes of demonstration.)
Once you get to the report menu, you can select your reason for reporting, and the option “It’s misleading about a political election.”
After you select this, you have to give a more specific reason for reporting. Essentially your options are “voter suppression,” “voter misinformation,” and “misrepresenting or impersonating a political entity.”
There you go, you’ve successfully reported a misleading tweet. It’s a shame it’s down to us to help curb the spread of these tweets, which are no doubt going to increase in quantity over the next several months, but at least now we have a specific tool touse.
