What do political campaigns, social media companies, and critics have in common? Well, they are all gearing up for the mega election on November 3rd. This year, there would be no traditional campaign events because of the ongoing pandemic, and so it would become challenging to figure out who is most likely to win the election.
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Social media websites are already bracing themselves to handle the widespread posts on the day of the election and after the results. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and even less politically-focused sites like Pinterest and TikTok have developed new policies to curb the spread of wrong information about election results or any claim of election rigging.
More followers, more influence
Anyone who has a huge follower base on any social media platform can influence people and use them to spread fake news. Political parties had been accused of taking advantage of this tactic in past elections. According to Rantic, this strategy has been adopted following businesses’ success in leveraging social media to increase brand awareness.
Reports circulate about how political parties and their vast IT network use millions of bots to sway people and influence their votes before the elections. It’s natural for social media profiles with more followers to have more influence, much like how popular companies on social media have better online reach than smaller businesses.
The spread of misleading information
Twitter received a lot of flack during the 2016 election because of the widespread misinformation that people spread during that period. This time, the site looks to take action against tweets that incite unlawful conduct and prevent the election’s peaceful conduct. These five years gave Twitter and other social media sites enough time to detect and remove any content that aimed to spread misleading information in an attempt to gain an advantage during the elections.
This also holds for Donald Trump and his allies, who, for months, had used their social media profiles to spread all sorts of misinformation regarding election rigging and voter fraud. Trump defended the tweets saying that Twitter was falsely trying to shut down the conservative voices.
The social media site had earlier warned Trump’s tweet for fact-checks, making the President lash back. This shows how seriously Twitter takes this matter to prevent any misinformation from spreading before, on, and after November 3rd. Anyone trying to spread hate or false information regarding election results would have to face severe consequences.
On the one hand, social media sites had to update their policies after thousands of people started spreading misinformation regarding public health due to the pandemic. On the other hand, with the election right around the corner, social media companies would have to deal with another wave of misinformation about political agenda.
However, this time, they appear more severe and willing than ever to stop people from sharing fake news and creating confusion on the day of the elections. After all, they take on the responsibility of ensuring that nobody can take advantage of their platforms and that social media users will see and share nothing but the truth.