Microblogging website Twitter is bringing election labels to the profiles of political candidates.
More details about election labels:
The new label, which contains a small icon of a government building, will appear on the profile page of the candidate as well as each tweet they send — including retweets by the account and embedded tweets on websites across the internet — for people running for US Senate, state governor, or US House of Representatives. These election labels will appear on the campaign Twitter accounts of candidates running for governor, or for the Senate or House of Representatives during the 2018 US midterm general election.
Twitter is partnering with Ballotpedia, a non-profit, civic organisation that publishes nonpartisan information on federal, state and local politics to help identify the campaign Twitter accounts of candidates once they qualify for the general election ballot for an applicable office.
Bridget Conye, a senior public policy manager at Twitter, wrote in a company blog post “Providing the public with authentic, trustworthy information is crucial to the democratic process, and we are committed to furthering that goal through the tools we continue to build”.
Currently, this feature is available for the 2018 US midterm elections only. It will appear for the state Governor, US Senate and the House of Representatives. Labels will begin to appear after May 30 on the campaign Twitter accounts of candidates who have already qualified for the general election ballot for an applicable office, and provided Twitter with consent to apply the label, Twitter said.
In addition to the new candidate labels, the site also announced its new Political Campaigning Policy.
“Today, we are launching our Political Campaigning Policy in the United States to provide clear insight into how we define political content and who is advertising political content on Twitter,” writes Twitter’s GM of revenue product and engineering, Bruce Falck.
Under the new policy, Twitter is forbidding any foreign nationals from targeting political ads to people in the US. Twitter handles used for political campaign advertising will have stricter requirements compared to standard Twitter handles, and they must include a profile photo, header photo and website link that is consistent with the account holder’s online presence. On top of the account details, the Twitter bio for the account will also have to include a website that provides valid contact information.