Twitter adds new labels, warnings to combat Covid-related misinformation

In order to deal with misinformation and provide more transparency in content on the platform, Twitter introduced new labels and warning messages that will provide additional context and information on some tweets that contain disputed or misleading information related to Covid-19.

The three broad categories the company will look at are misleading information, disputed claims and unverified claims.

In March, the microblogging platform adopted a new set of guidelines to address content that goes “against guidance on Covid-19 from authoritative sources of global and local public health information”.

Twitter’s internal teams and trusted partners will work to identify content likely to result in offline harm. However, embedded tweets and tweets viewed by people not logged in to Twitter may appear without a warning or label.

“This process is ongoing and we’ll work to make sure these and other labels and warnings show up across Twitter,” said Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of Site integrity and Nick Pickles, director, Public Policy Strategy at Twitter wrote in a blog post.

Monday’s announcement also includes using the new labels and warning messages to provide additional explanations or clarifications in situations where the risks of harm from a misleading tweet may be less severe, “but where people may still be confused or misled by the content. This will make it easier to find facts and make informed decisions about what people see on Twitter,” the officials said in the post.

“Earlier this year, we introduced a new label for Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media. Similar labels will now appear on Tweets containing potentially harmful, misleading information related to Covid-19. This will also apply to Tweets sent before today,” they said.

The labels will link to a Twitter curated page or external, trusted sources of information.

Additionally, Twitter may also apply warnings to certain tweets, depending on the possibility of harm and type of misleading information.