THE TWITTERVERSE overflows with many election-related conversations as there is barely three weeks to the Philippine general elections. With and 65.7 million registered voters casting their ballots on May 9, this election will be the largest in Asia.
Over 10 million Filipinos are logged in on Twitter. Thus, the public conversation than for the upcoming general elections has never been more important. To make that conversation useful, credible, healthy and safe is the crusade of Twitter as it clears out the clutter and commits to protect it.
During a media briefing Monrawee Ampolpittayanant (@monraweea), Head of Public Policy, Government and Philanthropy for Twitter in Southeast Asia presented what the short-message social media giant is doing to protect that conversation to make it available for people to engage in healthy civic debate and conversation.
“We know that there is a lot going on about the Philippine elections and we’d like to set our commitment to create a space for meaningful political debate, civic participation that will protect the integrity of the election conversation from interference and manipulation,” Monrawee said during her presentation.
Aside from creating a platform that eliminates trolling, fake news, Monrawee said Twitter is investing in technology, developing new policies, and building meaningful partnerships to drive civic participation and ensure that election-related conversations on our platform are based on credible information and healthy discourse. Earlier this year, Twitter announced its partnerships with #VotePilipinas and the Commission on Elections. The collaboration is to protect the integrity of the elections, fight misinformation and encourage voter participation.
The Twitter executive also said that the company will continue to harness the power of the #OpenInternet to strengthen dialogue and encourage quality participation during this important Philippine General Election.
In 2019, Twitter banned political ads in line with their existing policies, reinforcing its approach against manipulating or interfering in elections. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was quoted as saying that “we believe political message reach should be earned, not bought.”
It’s brevity and speed of delivery makes Twitter a cauldron from election-centric conversations. But keeping those conversations, real and honest for credible information about the elections, and for voters, especially the new ones, to learn about the many candidates and their platforms.
Twitter’s ban on political ads star in 2019 and in line with our Civic Integrity Policy, we are reinforcing our policies against manipulating or interfering in elections. This includes labelling misleading Tweets to provide additional context, and to help reduce the visibility of misleading information. Twitter will also remove or label Tweets that contain false or misleading information about candidates or on participation in the elections and the voting process.
It will also apply proactive detection and enforcement, using a combination of human review and technology to help us enforce its rules. When asked about the effectiveness of this system Monrawee highlighted that the specially trained team that reviews and responds to reports 24/7 in multiple languages, including Filipino.
Summarizing the actions it will take to protect the elections conversation, the Twitter executive said that it will apply three policies integral to protecting the integrity of the of the election conversation towards a confident and honest voting process.
First is that it will implement its civic integrity policy, so that deceptive content, which includes posting or sharing content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process will be contained and stopped.
Using the technology described earlier, it will also engage those who are artificially amplifying or suppressing information or engaging in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience on the platform. This platform manipulation can take many forms including commercially-motivated spam, inauthentic engagements, that attempt to make accounts or content appear more popular or active than they are; coordinated activity, that attempts to artificially influence conversations through the use of multiple accounts, fake accounts, automation and/or scripting; and coordinated harmful activity that encourages or promotes behavior which violates the Twitter policies.
Finally, it aims to stop “misleading media” which produces synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context content that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm. In the process, it will label Tweets containing misleading media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context.
“We want Twitter to be a place where people can make human connections, find reliable information, and express themselves freely and safely,” the Twitter executive said as the session closed.
