The Daily Observer London Desk: Reporter- John Furner
A research group is calling on X to reinstate users’ ability to report political information ahead of a referendum in Australia and the 2024 U.S. elections.
The research group Reset Australia penned an open letter to X this week to express concerns about the danger that the removal of the feature could cause.
“There now appears to be no channel to report electoral misinformation when discovered on your platform,” the letter reads. “We know of five separate individuals across Australia who have looked and are unable to report electoral misinformation. We believe this change occurred in the last week or two.”
The researchers say the change is especially dangerous in Australia, as the country is just weeks away from a national referendum to change the country’s constitution to establish an indigenous advisory group.
“It is extremely concerning that Australians would lose the ability to report serious misinformation weeks away from a major referendum,” the group said.
The feature to report election information ramped up in January 2022 and let users report misleading political content that would then go under review. Previously, when a post violated Twitter’s terms of service, the post would be removed and the poster may have been suspended.
The report of the removal of information reporting comes as X prepares for a 2024 U.S. general election cycle. X owner Elon Musk announced that the site would allow political ads again, something absent for years.
As part of the announcement that political advertising will return, X announced it will bolster its content moderation and safety teams ahead of the election.
