Twitter launches election-related search prompt in six Indian languages

Twitter has also launched a custom emoji for the #AssemblyElections2021. The emoji features an inked finger to represent a citizen who has exercised their right to vote.

A mobile phone user turns on Twitter application on his smartphone in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, March 10, 2021. Russian authorities say they have moved to slow down the speed of Twitter over its failure to remove the banned content an action that reflects the government's effort to tighten rules for social platforms. The state communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, said it took action Wednesday to slow down the speed of uploading photo and video on Twitter after it failed to remove the content encouraging children suicides and containing information about drugs and children pornography. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) (AP)

Twitter on Monday announced that it is launching a search prompt in six Indian languages amid the ongoing Assembly Elections taking place in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Puducherry.

The micro-blogging platform today announced that it has partnered with the Election Commission of India and State Election Commissions to make it easy for voters to find credible and authoritative information about candidate lists, voting dates, polling booths, and EVM voter registration, among other election-related topics.

To facilitate this, the company has launched ‘Election information prompt' in six Indian languages, which includes Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Assamese, Hindi, and English. These prompts will support more than 20 hashtags in the mentioned languages.

In addition to that, Twitter has also launched a custom emoji for the #AssemblyElections2021. The emoji features an inked finger to represent a citizen who has exercised their right to vote. This emoji will be available until May 10. The company says that people can Tweet in English, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Assamese and Tamil to activate the emoji.

Apart from this, Twitter is publishing a series of pre-bunk prompts across languages including English, Hindi, Tamil and Bengali based on content by the national and State Election Commissions and civil society partners such as Youth Ki Awaz, Association of Democratic Reforms to combat election-related misinformation on its platform. 

The company says that these prompts will appear on people's home timelines and in Search, including information about how to register to vote, and details on EVMs and VVPATs. They will also serve the public with relevant voting information about booths, postal ballots, COVID-19 restrictions and accessibility, among other topics. The service will also focus on de-bunking critical issues as they arise with a curated Twitter Moment.