Corporate Accountability

Researchers tracking misinformation ahead of the midterms notified Twitter on Friday about three posts from well-known far-right figures that advanced debunked claims about election fraud. The posts remain up three days later. When Common Cause asked Twitter for an update on Monday, the platform said the posts were “under review.” Before Musk took over, Twitter responded much more quickly, said Jesse Littlewood, vice president for campaigns at Common Cause. The group said they had been in regular contact with Twitter staff before Musk took over. Now, they are getting a response from a generic email address. “We had been getting much faster decisions from them, sometimes within hours,” said Littlewood. Now, he said, “It’s like pushing the button for the walk sign at the stop light, and nothing is happening.”

Yosef Getachew, director of the media and democracy program at Common Cause, said there’s a significant risk that misinformation spreading so soon before the election could confuse or frighten voters, or lead to more polarization or even acts of violence. “Rather than cave in to conspiracy theorists and propaganda peddlers, we urge Musk to ensure Twitter’s rules and enforcement practices reflect our values of democracy and public safety,” Getachew said.

Last week, Elon Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Soon after closing the deal, Musk fired Twitter’s top executives including its CEO, CFO, General Counsel, and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety. More layoffs are expected to be made in the coming days. 

"(Musk's acquisition) could certainly create a much bigger pathway for disinformation agents to spread harmful information on the platform," said Yosef Getachew, the director of the media and democracy program at Common Cause, the nonpartisan public interest organization. "Content moderation policies are only effective if there are people there to enforce them and systems in place to ensure they are being enforced. If those rules are going to be out the window, that is going to be incredibly harmful."

“Ballot drop boxes are open for much longer than polling places. They aren’t staffed and they are often placed in locations that make them vulnerable for people to act in a way that you would probably not see in a polling place,” said Suzanne Almeida, who is heading a voter intimidation hotline for the advocacy group Common Cause.

“We certainly know elections can, and have been, and will be again decided by a handful of votes, so anything that affects voters has the potential to change the outcome,” said Jesse Littlewood, vice president of campaigns at Common Cause, an advocacy organization whose efforts include fighting mis- and disinformation. “That would include voter myths or disinformation which could either cause the voter to miss the chance to participate because they believed incorrect information, or cause them to not participate at all because they don’t believe in the integrity of the election process,” Littlewood said. ... The steps a voter should take are “the same whether it’s a tweet, a Facebook post, a WhatsApp chat from your uncle or aunt or a Telegram message from former President Trump,” Littlewood said. “You should take the same steps of verifying that it’s a trusted source of information and verifying the motivation of who the provider of the information is,” he said. ...