Twitter declares to release multiple multi-lingual initiatives to handle meaningful political debate and to drive civic participation at the upcoming assembly elections in India. To make better facilitation of the upcoming elections in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, Twitter has proclaimed that it has taken in stride to establish a set of initiatives focused at encouraging informed and healthy conversations among candidates, political parties, citizens, media and society.

Among the initiatives is an information search prompt with the election commission of India and state election commissions to provide reliable information around the elections. It is believed to contain authoritative information about candidate list, voting dates, polling booths and voter registration among other election-related topics. The prompt will be active in six different languages such as Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Assamese, Hindi and English, supporting more than 20 hashtags in local languages.

To counter misleading information, Twitter will produce a set of pre-bunk prompts to languages like English, Hindi, Tamil and Bengali based on content from national and state elections commissions and civil society partners such as ‘Youth ki Awaaz’ and Association of Democratic reforms. Stating the prompts will appear on people’s homes timelines and will instruct information about how to register to vote and details on electronic voting machines (EVMs) and voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT). It will also issue relevant information on topics related to voting such as booths, postal ballots, COVID-19 restrictions and accessibility.

In partnership with Youth ki Awaaz, Twitter is bringing back its multilingual youth discussion series, #DemocracyAdda aimed at voter literacy and civic participation among Young Indians. Twitter will also host live video sessions and tweet chats to talk about key issues centering gender equality, employment, education and health with young citizens, civil society groups and representative.

The platform will also bring back, #HerPoliticalJourney, a video series where women political leaders talk about their personal stories with leading women news journalists.

Also, a customized emoticon that appears to be an inked finger representing an individual who has exercised his/her voti9ng rights is launched and will be effective till May 10th.

“During elections public conversation is very important and Twitter is where this unfolds. With digital penetration occurring in India, a lot of individuals now have access to credible, authoritative and timely information, crucial tools for exercising their timely rights. With the power of the internet, we are encouraging Individuals to be a part of #AssemblyElections2021 conversation. None of this would be possible without the election commission of India and state election commissions and hope our efforts contribute to a healthy and vibrant civic dialogue”, said Payal Kamat, Manager, Public Policy and Government, Twitter India.