X has announced some new updates to its political content policies in preparation for the next wave of global voting cycles, and the role that X is hoping to play in overall discourse.

Much has been made of X's shifting policy approaches under Elon Musk, who himself has become a more active political commentator since taking over the app last year. And with the U.S. presidential pre-selection processes now underway for the 2024 election, Musk has made clear whom he supports, which could also have an influence on X's policy.

While, for the most part, X is becoming increasingly "hands-off" in discussing politics, under its "Freedom of Speech, Not Reach" approach, whereby it claims that all points of view, true or false, should be aired so that the people can determine what is best.

Which, we can look up to recent history to know, is a dangerous approach, but X's new policy update does align with this and aims to improve its core free speech ethos.

According to X:

"During elections, our Civic Integrity Policy provides an additional layer of protection that we apply only for a limited time before and during an election. We're refining this policy to ensure we get the right balance between having policies in place to deal with the most harmful types of content - those capable of intimidating or deceiving people into surrendering their right to participate in some civic process - and not censoring political debate."

So X will focus on targeting counter-participation tactics in more detail, rather than regulating the flow of speech, per se.

"As an added step, the policy will be incorporated into our revised enforcement philosophy, Freedom of Speech, Not Reach. We will display publicly visible labels on posts that break the Civic Integrity Policy, so people know when their reach has been limited."

X has been exploring ways to make restricted posts more transparent for some time now, and Musk has recently noted that new in-stream indicators will be ready. One of the most commonly cited areas of concern for politically engaged users is 'shadowbans', or restrictions on post reach, based upon what they post about. X has indeed included shadowban-style elements in its algorithm before, but now it's trying to enact new measures that would inform users when their reach is impacted instead of letting them share their updates and see worse performance.

X will also soon allow political advertising once again, which Musk also flagged back in January.
Former CEO Jack Dorsey banned political ads altogether on the app back in 2019, making it the first major social platform to do so, with Dorsey noting at the time that:

  "While internet advertising is incredibly powerful, and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions."

Dorsey’s view was that political ads were not worth the negative impacts that can come with them, but Musk, again, has been much more engaged politically, and has repeatedly noted that X should be a forum for such discussion.

Which includes paid promotion.

“Starting in the U.S., we’ll continue to apply specific policies to paid-for promoted political posts. This will include prohibiting the promotion of false or misleading content, including false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election, while seeking to preserve free and open political discourse. We’ll also provide a global advertising transparency center so that everyone can review political posts being promoted on X, in addition to robust screening processes to ensure only eligible groups and campaigns are able to advertise.”

So X will also add a political ads library, which it'll actually need to do in order to adhere to the incoming EU DSA rules.

These aren't really policy changes per se, as all the same ad rules and qualifiers apply that were in place under previous X management. But Elon and Co. are definitely approaching political ads in a different way, and it'll be interesting to see how they treat obvious misinformation on matters of fact, as well as what X's moderators determine is "right" or wrong in such statements.

That's the real collision of the old way and new way of things at the app. Elon Musk has repeatedly noted that social platforms shouldn't be arbiters for truth in the debate of politics but remove themselves from that judgment, opening the door to plenty of political operatives spreading misinformation far and wide through their networks.

A well-timed misinformation campaign, just before voters head to the polls, can be enough to swing the vote. In the 2019 Australian election, for example, the Liberal Party made a big push to promote a so-called "Death Tax" that its opposition would implement if it were to take office. There was no such tax being proposed, and the opposing Labor party denied its existence. But an intensified shove, in the last weeks of campaigning, probably resulted in a Liberal win, as searches for "death tax" increased sharply in the lead-up to the election.

Should that sort of lie be tolerated on social apps? How about climate change debate, with some candidates still denying that human-caused climate impact is anything but a major hoax, or concerns over Covid, the January 6th riots, or any other form of debunked conspiracy theory, which will no doubt be peddled by some candidates?

Musk views all of these conversations as okay, in the name of free speech, and it's already erased its COVID misinformation policies as a result.

The test itself is coming, and it looks like X is getting set to let as much as it can go, without having to intervene.