U.S. WEEKLY offers an in-depth analysis of various geopolitical processes that have direct effect on US' domestic and foreign policies. This particular analytical column is possible thanks to the cooperation with polish media abroad: Dziennik Związkowy – Polish Daily News, Polishexpress of United Kingdom and WIrlandii.pl of Ireland
How the 2022 US midterm elections are changing Big Tech online policies and what can we expect?
Drawing back from the lessons learned during the 2020 presidential elections, Big Tech companies have adopted new strategies to mitigate what culminated in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021. Indeed, the FBI's raid of former President Trump's home in Mar-A-Lago, has revived the online narrative into another wave of rage that has set off the conversation amidst the midterms.
SOURCE:Twitter
At three months away from the midterm elections, social media giants such as Meta, Twitter and TikTok and online platforms like Google, have introduced a series of tools to mitigate what might turn into a war room among the electorate. Due to the unique regulatory system in the United States, the US government, with its mandate for free speech, leaves social media companies to regulate themselves for the most part. Hence, in a serious move to mitigate the spreading and amplification of uncivic content, several elements of the platform's Community Guidelines, Political Content Policy, advertising policies are among amended policies.
A zoom-in into the strategies published by these companies show a pattern whereby fighting misinformation, disinformation and enacting prebunk mechanisms rank as top priorities. For instance, in its strategy to approach the US midterm elections,[1] Twitter has introduced a redefined set of guidelines that seek to protect civic conversation on the platform. Interestingly, Twitter has highlighted that 'labels' form the basis for misleading information. For this reason, a strong point introduced within the company's strategy is the redesign of labels from identifying who's running for office to identifying misleading pictures.
For its part, Google has modified its Political Content Policy to clarify the disclosure requirements for election advertising using ad formats.[2] As a follow-up strategy, Google has signed off a voluntary commitment to the European Union's new anti-disinformation code. At its core, the new initiative seeks to demonetize disinformation. Moreover, Google extensions such as Gmail and YouTube will also be subject to these changes as Google's efforts are focused to make sure "campaign emails stay out of your spam folder after it was criticized for marking too many Republican campaign emails as spam."[3]
Certainly, greater attention has been set to the Chinese owned social media platform TikTok. In a serious move, TikTok banned paid political advertising in 2019. As of Wednesday last week, paid influencer content will now be equally prohibited. However, despite the ban imposed in 2019 and now in 2022, influencer's behavior has not significantly changed during the elections in 2020. As such, there is a relatively similar expectation for 2022 for which the platform will now proceed with stricter policies.
In addition, the platform TikTok launched on August 17th, an in-app US midterms Elections Center. TikTok's Elections Center will include resources in more than 45 languages, including English and Spanish, with the aim to inform and educate users about the elections.
Considering the eligible electorate population has increased by 8 million,[4] the reach of campaigns using social media and online platform is now larger than ever. In addition, the turnout of young voters has also showed significant increased, incentivized by major national controversies. Sparked by conversations on abortion and other political issues, young voters have used social media as their primary source of information, enhancing further the risks of being ill-informed.
Looking ahead to the midterms, it is natural to question whether social media platforms will be able to stop extremists from organizing. However, what should be concerning is the fact that still "there is an overall lack of transparency and accountability across all efforts to tackle election-related misinformation and disinformation."[5] Research published by New America[6] shows that from all the top social media platforms, only Reddit and Snap have installed a full comprehensive review process for election-related ads, leaving other platforms with partially installed mechanisms.
In a similar context tackling misleading information, these developments have also expanded to South America whereby the upcoming elections in Brazil have also witnessed heated online confrontations and contesting narratives coming to form both electorate groups; For the Good of Brazil led by the current conservative president Jair Bolsonaro and left-oriented Brazil of Hope led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement – Tufts University, "More than 8 Million Youth Are Newly Eligible Voters in 2022" (July 11, 2022) Available at <https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/more-8-million-youth-are-newly-eligible-voters-2022> Accessed August 2022.
Google "Update to Political Content Policy (August 2022)" Available at <https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/12304750?hl=en> Accessed August 2022.
Roach Sarah and Nat Rubio-Licht "How Big Tech is preparing for midterms" Protocol (August 12, 2022) Available at: <https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/sourcecode/big-tech-midterm-elections?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2> Accessed August 2022.
Singh Spandana and Quinn Anex-Ries, "Misleading Information and the Midterms. How Platforms are Addressing Misinformation and Disinformation Ahead of the 2022 U.S. Elections, New America Open Technology Institute (July 20th, 2022) Available at: <https://www.newamerica.org/oti/reports/misleading-information-and-the-midterms/tackling-misleading-advertising> Accessed August 2022.
Twitter "Our approach to the 2022 US midterms" Twitter (Thursday, 11 August 2022) Available at: <https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2022/-our-approach-to-the-2022-us-midterms>
[1]Twitter "Our approach to the 2022 US midterms" Twitter (Thursday, 11 August 2022) Available at: <https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2022/-our-approach-to-the-2022-us-midterms>
[2]Google "Update to Political Content Policy (August 2022)" Available at <https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/12304750?hl=en> Accessed August 2022.
[3] Roach Sarah and Nat Rubio-Licht "How Big Tech is preparing for midterms" Protocol (August 12, 2022) Available at: <https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/sourcecode/big-tech-midterm-elections?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2> Accessed August 2022.
[4] More than 8 Million Youth Are Newly Eligible Voters in 2022 – See https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/more-8-million-youth-are-newly-eligible-voters-2022.
[5] Singh Spandana and Quinn Anex-Ries, "Misleading Information and the Midterms. How Platforms are Addressing Misinformation and Disinformation Ahead of the 2022 U.S. Elections, New America Open Technology Institute (July 20th, 2022) Available at: <https://www.newamerica.org/oti/reports/misleading-information-and-the-midterms/tackling-misleading-advertising> Accessed August 2022.
Katja-Elisabeth Herrmann
Katja-Elisabeth works as a research fellow at the Warsaw Institute. She has a background in Transatlantic Affairs from the College of Europe (Warsaw, Poland) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Additionally, Katja-Elisabeth holds a BA in International Relations and International Organizations which she combined with a degree in International and European Law from the University of Groningen. During her undergraduate studies, her main focus explored the nexus between technology and law in the European Union. She has recently been awarded the Squire Patton Boggs Foundation public policy fellowship in 2022. As part of her work under the fellowship program, her research is devoted to relevant topics of transatlantic affairs interest from a legal and political perspective.