The new feature is aimed at combatting the spread of misinformation surrounding the current COVID-19 pandemic.
The addition of the new warnings follows the site’s announcement from this past March that it would be working to directly address tweets containing false or misleading information regarding the coronavirus.
Writing in its official blog, Twitter said:
“Starting today, we’re introducing new labels and warning messages that will provide additional context and information on some Tweets containing disputed or misleading information related to COVID-19.
“Moving forward, we may use these labels and warning messages to provide additional explanations or clarifications in situations where the risk of harm associated with a Tweet are less severe but where people may still be confused or misled by the content.”
The labels will be similar to those Twitter released earlier this year surrounding “synthetic and manipulated media”, and will appear on tweets shared from and before the release date of 11 May that are deemed to be sharing misleading information, as well as disputed and unverified claims.
Twitter has been working to improve its systems to better monitor content discussing the coronavirus, which it hopes will allow them to identify tweets that fall within the aforementioned three categories. It will also be relying on its partners to inform them when they come across content that could “result in offline harm”.
Labels will link to either a Twitter-curated page or an external, trusted source that contains information on the claims made within the specific tweet. Warnings may be applied depending on how harmful a tweet is deemed, and they will inform users that it “conflicts with public health experts’ guidance”.
It should be noted that embedded tweets and those viewed by people not logged into Twitter may appear without the labels and warnings.
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Twitter has been testing out the ability to schedule tweets. Alternatively, you could read about the global rollout of Facebook’s new desktop site.
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