Twitter plans to add new labels to the accounts of political candidates in the upcoming 2018 midterm election in an effort to thwart fraudsters from creating fake accounts and sowing confusion.
Candidate profiles will be emblazoned with small graphic of a government building that is intended to identify their accounts as legitimate, the company said on Wednesday.
The labels, which will debut May 30, will show information like what state the candidates are running in as well as their electoral district numbers. The labels will appear on the top of a candidate’s Twitter profile, as well as on the top of tweets or retweets that they post.
The goal is to hamstring Internet trolls or foreign governments from spreading disinformation on Twitter like they are suspected of doing during the 2016 presidential campaign. Both Twitter and Facebook came under fire by U.S. Lawmakers for failing to stop Russian entities from spreading propaganda on their services during the run up to the vote.
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Twitter said it enlisted the civic non-profit Ballotopedia to help verify the Twitter (TWTR) accounts of political candidates running for office.
“When people are looking for news and information, they turn to Twitter to find out what’s happening in the world right now,” Twitter’s senior public policy manager Bridget Coyne said in a statement. “We understand the significance of this responsibility and our teams are building new ways for people who use Twitter to identify original sources and authentic information.”
Although Twitter already verifies prominent accounts by giving them a blue check mark, the election labels appear to be a way For Twitter to more specifically identify politicians from celebrities or high-profile CEOs.
