Twitter’s new midterm election page highlights hoaxes and false information

Twitter’s new events page for the coming midterm elections are highlighting false information.

The new tool aggregates tweets about politics and the midterm elections, organized in two tabs “Top Commentary” and “Latest” tweets on the matter.

{mosads}The events page shows many verified accounts tweeting accurate information, as well as unverified accounts tweeting. But in some cases the tool is elevating tweets peddling incorrect information.

Conservative internet personality Bill Mitchell falsely claims in a tweet which made Twitter’s tool that “Democrats paid for the Honduran Caravan” and incorrectly characterizes it as a “marauding band of fighting age men.”

Another tweet by Richard Angwin, a progressive tweeter with a large following of over 164,000 tweets reads “I agree with Tom Hanks Don’t be a #TrumpVoter” accompanied by a fake image of Tom Hanks wearing a shirt disparaging Trump voters.”

BuzzFeed News spotted several other misleading tweets in Twitter’s roundup, including falsely claiming a Republican candidate in the New York governor’s race dropped out, another that said Kid Rock was about to become a Michigan Senator and one another advertising a hoax story about an illegal leftist voting ring in Texas that doesn’t exist.

Twitter’s midterm event also included tweets from PizzaGate conspiracy theorist, Jack Posobiec and Jim Hoft, founder of Gateway Pundit, a site that has promoted false theories and hoax stories in the past and far-right internet personalities.

And two seconds in:

O’keefe
Jim Hoft

The kings of fake news featured right in twitters midterms coverage pic.twitter.com/7P7BnmRMO4

— Josh Russell (@josh_emerson) October 30, 2018

The new events page comes roughly one year after revelations that Twitter and other social media platforms were manipulated by Russians to spread false information in an attempt to influence the 2016 election.

The company has since worked to try to stop the recurring threat posed by Russian and now Iranian trolls, who have continued to try to spread misinformation on its platform.

Twitter did not immediately return The Hill’s request for comment on the misinformation making its way into its midterm event nor answer questions about how the tool aggregates tweets.