The X social media platform has disabled a feature that let people report misinformation about elections, a research organization said yesterday.
After introducing a feature last year for people to report a post they considered misleading about politics, X in the past week removed the “politics” category from its drop-down menu in every jurisdiction, except for the EU, research organization Reset.Tech Australia said.
Users could still report posts to X globally for a host of other complaints such as promoting violence or hate speech, it said.
Photo: Reuters
X was not immediately available for comment.
The change was made less than three weeks before Australia is to hold a referendum on whether to change the constitution to establish an indigenous advisory body to parliament and 14 months before the US presidential election.
“It would be helpful to understand why X have seemingly gone backwards on their commitments to mitigating the kind of serious misinformation that has translated into real political instability in the US, especially on the eve of the ‘bumper year’ of elections globally,” Reset.Tech Australia executive director Alice Dawkins said.
In a letter to X managing director for Australia Angus Keene, Reset.Tech Australia said that the change might leave content that contravenes X’s own policy banning electoral misinformation online without an appropriate review process.
“It is extremely concerning that Australians would lose the ability to report serious misinformation weeks away from a major referendum,” said the letter, which was published online.
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