Twitter is planning to restrict criticism of mail-in voting with less than 12 weeks until the U.S. presidential election.
“Twitter said Wednesday it plans to expand its rules against misleading information about mail-in ballots and early voting,” Politico summarized August 12. Twitter reportedly stated it is looking into expanding policies to combat criticism of mail-in voting. Twitter also appears to be following the trend of other Big Tech companies in its plans to focus its “registration efforts for 2020 on mail-in and early voting,” Politico explained.
Twitter vice president of public policy for the Americas Jessica Herrera-Flanigan proclaimed the platform’s commitment to participating in the election. “Ahead of the 2020 US Election, we're focused on empowering every eligible person to register and vote through partnerships, tools and new policies that emphasize accurate information about all available options to vote,” Herrera-Flanigan stated, “including by mail and early voting."
Herrera-Flanigan claimed that “Twitter is working hard to increase informed participation in democratic processes around the world.” This might seem contradictory when considering how Twitter allows dictators from China and Iran to use the platform, meanwhile citizens of those countries may not. That’s a hypocrisy Republican leaders called out in March. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) and Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) signed an open letter demanding Twitter ban Chinese propaganda accounts and all foreign leaders who use Twitter while not allowing their citizens to do so.
This is not the first time Twitter had declared an assault on conservatives’ ability to argue their ideas.
A new era in Big Tech censorship dawned in late May, when Twitter fact-checked Trump for suggesting that mail-in ballots could lead to voter fraud, a concern even The New York Times has acknowledged to be valid in the past.
Even before these most recent acts of censorship, Twitter had racked up an impressive record of liberal bias, including allowing blatant Chinese propaganda to be spread among Americans. One such example of this was when Twitter allowed a Chinese official to scapegoat the U.S. military for somehow spreading the COVID-19 virus.
But Twitter is not alone in this. The ostensibly left-wing platform appears to be mirroring others in the industry, as Google and Facebook have also ramped up efforts to update election information on the respective platforms.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new measures to encourage individuals to register to vote and to combat so-called misinformation about voting. Google released a similar campaign to register voters on August 13, which it said will help voters access important information and “connect[] people to the democratic process.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Twitter's leadership by tweeting at the official @Twitter account or Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey @Jack and demand that Twitter not bow to liberal media pressure. Instead, Big Tech should be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form to be included in our database, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
