Twitter Goes Full Orwell: ‘Pre-Debunking’ Election Falsehoods, Factchecking the Future

Twitter is once again crashing into the electoral politics of 2020 through the funneling of the information that its users generate, this time with some tactical changes straight out of a science fiction storyline.

Much like George Orwell predicted in his seminal work 1984, and in a move that make Tom Cruise’s Minority Report look tame, Twitter is now going to factcheck the future in order to provide alleged clarity on election night.

The short messaging service said it would place notices at the top of user feeds warning that there may be delays in full election results and that people might see “misleading information” about voting by mail.

This “pre-bunking” is part of an effort to stay ahead of baseless claims about the election before they occur, according to Twitter’s head of site integrity Yoel Roth.

“We’re introducing ‘pre-bunks’ for some of the most common misleading claims about #Election2020,” Roth tweeted.

“Research shows that getting ahead of misinformation is a powerful way to build resilience. Excited to see this application of inoculation theory in practice.”

There are concerns, of course, that Twitter could be used in a political manner on election night, as trending topics on the platform has previously led to real-life consequences.

In an atmosphere as charged as next Tuesday’s atmosphere will be, there’s no telling what sort of impact social media could have.