After the platform took action against several networks that sought to influence or otherwise affect American political discourse ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Twitter CEO Elon Musk released a statement clarifying how the platform will proceed with election integrity and content moderation, including hate and harassment.
Musk stated in a series of tweets that he was considering reactivating certain accounts on the site and that a content moderation council was being formed.
In a tweet to his 113 million followers, Musk stated that Twitter “will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on the platform until we have a clear mechanism for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks.”
The CEO said, “Representatives from vastly disparate viewpoints, including the civil rights community and groups that deal with hate-fueled violence, will be included on Twitter’s content moderation committee.”
Musk also claimed to have discussed Twitter’s plans to “continue to combat hate & harassment & enforce its election integrity policies” with a number of civil society leaders, including Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, Norman Chen of the Asian American Foundation, Derrick Johnson of the NAACP, and others.
Musk’s tweets followed the announcement that Twitter had suspended six pro-Republican and pro-Democratic networks, most of which were based outside of the United States and were allegedly trying to influence the upcoming election. The announcement was made by the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a non-partisan coalition established in 2020 to track down and combat misinformation on social media.
The EIP’s analysis, which was published on Nov. 1 by Twitter, stated that “On October 26, 2022, Twitter released six datasets to the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium, consisting of six distinct inauthentic networks with technical links to China and Iran that had tweeted about the United States November 2022 midterm elections.”
Twitter will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on platform until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
The six networks, some of which contained more than 100,000 tweets from different users, were finally suspended because they broke Twitter’s Platform Manipulation and Spam Policy, according to the EIP.
“Five of the six networks released information that was mostly focused on American politics, notably the midterm elections scheduled for November 8, 2022. The sixth episode focused on a variety of geopolitical concerns, such as the conflict in Ukraine and American foreign policy toward China, with sporadic commentary on the midterm elections “EIP was added.
10Votes, EvenPolitics, Follow Back Resistance, Florida Anti-Rubio Network, Conservative #LeadFromWithin Network, and Pro-China Network were among the networks mentioned.
The company is “keeping watchful” to thwart electoral interference, according to Twitter’s head of Safety & Integrity, Yoel Roth, who verified the moves.
“We’re on the lookout for attempts to sway discussions around the US midterm elections in 2022. Continue reading for an unbiased critique of our teams’ work “said he.
We’re staying vigilant against attempts to manipulate conversations about the 2022 US midterms. Read on for independent analysis of our teams’ work 👇 https://t.co/O2MFNqCTY2
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) November 2, 2022
According to EIP, 10Votes had five accounts and 5,832 tweets with messages, the majority of which were made by two accounts between December 2021 and September 2022.
Pro-Trump statements were uploaded on one of the network’s main accounts, including arguments against the validity of the 2020 elections. The accounts promoted abortion restrictions among other leftist social causes while also sharing “memes and endorsement postings” for certain congressional candidates.
Another network user pretended to be a “progressive political advocacy organization,” tweeting endorsements for Democratic candidates in contests around the nation, including “congressional districts #MI11, #NY03, #OH11, and #TX38,” according to EIP.
Numerous politicians were also mentioned by the account, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, John Fetterman, a candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate, Sens. Ed Markey, and Jeff Merkley, among others.
From 2020 to 2022, 109,410 tweets were sent by 37 accounts that made up the EvenPolitics Network.
The majority of the accounts shared messages in support of Democrats, Black Lives Matter, and LGBTQIA content, the report said.
In addition to sharing material that appealed to Left-leaning communities, Follow Back Resistance, a network of 16 accounts and 24,579 tweets, also promoted “Free Palestine,” anti-Trump sentiments, and articles about Roe v. Wade.
These accounts, according to EIP, were created with the intention of amplifying “strong opinions on controversial subjects in American politics” and maybe swaying people “who might vote in a way that is more aligned” with their opinions.
EIP seeks to “empower the research community, election officials, government agencies, civil society organizations, social media platforms, and others to defend our elections against those who seek to undermine them by exploiting weaknesses in the online information environment,” according to its website.
Their investigation was carried out in collaboration with the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), the Center for an Informed Public (CIP) at the University of Washington, Graphika, and the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council (DFRLab).
EIP concluded by saying: “We think that this analysis of fraudulent behavior on Twitter offers important visibility into the strategies used by financially motivated foreign parties to sway American political discourse, particularly around elections.”
“These operations reinforce that foreign interference is ongoing, despite the relatively small number of engagements that these networks were able to achieve,” the statement continued. “Working with researchers to find, assess, and disrupt these manipulative operations remains critical to stopping them while they are still small.”
