the midterms, the first democratic test for the social network – Liberation

The holding of mid-term elections on Tuesday will be an opportunity to observe the effects of the dismissals in the moderation or transparency and ethics teams.

It will have to be “really careful” on Twitter in the coming days, warned Kate Starbird, associate professor at the University of Washington who specializes in disinformation. “Expect tricks”, she warned on Friday on the social network. On the eve of the midterm elections in the United States and their inevitable batch of conspiracy theories, the announcement of the dismissal of half of the 7,500 employees of Twitter in the wake of its takeover by billionaire Elon Musk, put on alert researchers, ex-employees and election officials.

A high-risk period for the United States, these midterm polls are a test of American democracy, the first since the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Poll after poll shows that around 40% of Americans ( 70% of Republican voters) still don’t believe in the legitimacy of Biden’s election in 2020, despite a lack of evidence of voter fraud.

For these midterms, where the seats of a third of the Senate, of the entire House of Representatives, are put into play.