Platforms Prepare for the US Presidential Election

Tuesday, November 5 is US Election day. It has been a very online election season, and many platforms report that they are taking steps to prevent the spread of misinformation and promote election integrity.

Google, TikTok, and other companies work with Democracy Works, a nonpartisan nonprofit to provide official election and voting information.

Google, Meta and Microsoft say they are trying to label and otherwise inform the public about AI-generated deepfakes, but from what I've observed, that has been pretty hit or miss. It's not clear what, if any, role AI-powered misinformation might play in affecting votes or voter turnout.

Here is an overview of what the big companies are doing before, during, and after the US elections.

The big themes: 

• Recommending authoritative sources for US election information. 
• Limiting US election-related ads before and/or after the election. 
• Blocking election-related queries in AI features on Google and YouTube.
• Emphasizing policy enforcement around misinformation, disrupting elections, violence and other related policies.

As an aside, if you are eligible to vote in the US elections, vote! It's not just the presidential election. Your city council, and local school board, and park district, and other local offices will affect your community and daily life. 

YouTube (more info) 

• YouTube currently shows information about how to vote, and information panels about federal election candidates.
• There are election-related restrictions on YouTube AI-generated summaries for Live Chat (in addition to Google’s other AI tools).
• On Election Day YouTube will link to Google’s live election results feature and have a shelf of live streams to “authoritative news channels” on the home page.
• The Community Guidelines already prohibit misleading content on how to vote, encouraging interference in the democratic process, inciting violence, promoting harmful conspiracy theories, and threatening election workers. But a Media Matters study showed: "YouTube lets creators lie about election outcomes. It’s making money off their videos."
• After the last polls close, they will “temporarily” pause ads related to US elections.

Google (more info)

• Search and Maps show voting locations and ballot dropboxes. Search also has been showing voter registration information.
• They are working with the Associated Press to show authoritative election results.
• There are election-related restrictions on AI tools, including Search AI Overviews, Gems, and image generation in Gemini. Gemini will link to Google Search for updated information. Why? “This new technology can make mistakes as it learns or as news breaks”.
• The Google Threat Analysis Group identifies coordinated influence operation campaigns from around the world (not just for US elections), and can terminate YouTube channels, Blogger blogs, Google News sites, Google Ads and AdSense accounts.
• Google Ads requires verification to run US election ads, including a billing address in the US or US territories, verification of the individual or organization running the ad and public disclosure of who paid for the ad. You can view current US political ads in the Google Ads transparency center.
• Ads related to US elections will stop serving in the US after the polls close. This is “temporary”, and they will let advertisers know when the policy is lifted.

Meta (more info and even more detailed info)

• Advertisers must be authorized to run election ads and disclose who paid for the ad. Ads are available in the Meta Ad Library.
• Facebook and Instagram Community Standards prohibit election and voter interference, hate speech, coordinating harm and publicizing crime.
• Like Google, Meta removes accounts participating in Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior on Instagram and Facebook.
• No new political, electoral and social issue ads can be run starting one week before the election and ending the day after the election. Previously running ads can continue to run.

Microsoft

• The Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) reports on foreign campaigns to influence the US elections.
• On Election day, Bing will have election result maps updated in real time with data from the Associated Press.
• The Microsoft TurboVote site helps people find information about voter registration and voting locations.
• Microsoft Advertising does not allow political or election related ads.

TikTok (more info and even more detailed info)

• TikTok convened a US Elections Integrity Advisory Group to provide recommendations on their approach to election integrity.
• Community Guidelines prohibit harmful misinformation, foreign influence attempts, hate speech, and misleading AI-generated content. 
• Election-related content is labeled and links to the Election Center. 
• They partner with fact-checking organizations to label videos with "unsubstantiated" information. Misinformation may be removed or be made ineligible for the "For You" feed.
• They work with MediaWise to create media literacy content both before and after the election.
• They are working with the Associated Press to display real-time election results.
• TikTok prohibits paid promotion of political content. Accounts for politicians and political parties do not have access to advertising or monetization features.

Twitch

• Twitch has not made any specific statements about steps it is taking to protect election Integrity.
• This week Twitch updated its policies to require labeling of "discussions or debates about politics or sensitive social issues such as elections, civic integrity, military conflict, and civil rights."
• Twitch prohibits advertising with "political and issue ads for candidates, parties, or issues of public debate".

X (formerly Twitter)

• X owner Elon Musk has been posting false election-related information and started an "Election Integrity" community, where people are actively posting misinformation. 
• Musk is also actively campaigning for Donald Trump, with some of the millions of dollars he is spending going to a super PAC that has been running misleading ads on Facebook. The America PAC was also given the @America handle on X.
• Not surprisingly, X has not made any statements about preventing the spread of false election-related information (how would that even work?). 
• X allows political ads in the US (and a number of other countries), with pre-authorization. However, X apparently has not kept its advertising library up to date (get the data here), so it's not possible to see what political ads are currently running. 

Cover image: By Sora Shimazaki on Pexels. Free for commercial use.