Twitter has stopped enforcing its civic integrity policy, which says people “may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes,” as it relates to Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the US presidential election of 2020.
CNN reports that Twitter actually stopped enforcing the policy in March 2021. That’s just two months after the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters who believed that Biden (and pretty much anyone else not wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat) stole the election.
Twitter spokesperson Elizabeth Busby told CNN that the company only intended the civic integrity policy to apply “during the duration” of an election, and that “the 2020 U.S. election is not only certified, but President Biden has been in office for more than a year.”
There are two obvious problems with that explanation. The first is that although President Biden has been in office for over a year at time of writing, that wasn’t the case when Twitter stopped enforcing the policy. The second is that misinformation about the 2020 election still abounds.
CNN explains:
Former President Donald Trump continues to relentlessly repeat lies about the 2020 election. Intelligence analysts say members of far-right extremist groups continue to subscribe to these lies. Driven by the lies, Republican activists around the country continue to press for so-called election audits and they hunt, sometimes door to door, for supposed fraud.
These lies about the 2020 election don’t just continue to dominate the political landscape; they’ve also led Trump supporters to levy death threats against election workers. Misinformation about COVID has also led to threats against teachers, health officials, and other public workers.
The civic integrity policy was part of Twitter’s efforts to curb the spread of that misinformation. Learning that it hasn’t enforced that policy for nearly a year raises serious questions about its commitment to those efforts—and to preventing its platform from being abused in other ways.
Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
