Twitter to label misleading information related to Covid-19

Twitter on Monday introduced new labels for tweets that contain harmful and misleading information related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The micro-blogging platform has introduced the labels in a bid to limit the spread of potentially harmful and misleading content on the platform.

“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,” Twitter said in an official blog post detailing the feature.

Twitter in March had broadened its policies to address harmful content related to the pandemic on its platform.

According to the new guidelines introduced in march, the platform will remove tweets that contain a denial of global or local health authority recommendations, description of alleged cures for. Covid-19 or harmful, false treatments. It will also remove specific and unverified claims that incite people to action and cause widespread panic, social unrest or large-scale disorder as well as claims made by people impersonating a government or health official or organization apart from claims that specific groups, nationalities are or are not susceptible to Covid-19.

“We may use these labels and warning messages to provide additional explanations or clarifications in situations where the risks of harm associated with a Tweet are less severe but where people may still be confused or misled by the content,” Twitter said.

The labels are similar to those introduced for manipulated and synthetic media by the social media platform earlier this year.

In order to label the tweets, the platform will divide them into three broad categories based on the propensity for harm and type of misleading information. The ‘Misleading information’ category will have “statements or assertions that have been confirmed to be false or misleading by subject-matter experts, such as public health authorities.”

“Statements or assertions in which the accuracy, truthfulness, or credibility of the claim is contested or unknown” will be included in the ‘Disputed claims’ category while the ‘Unverified claims’ category will contain “information (which could be true or false) that is unconfirmed at the time it is shared.”

These labels will link to a Twitter-curated page or an external website of a “trusted source” that contains relevant information on the claims made within the Tweet.

“Our teams are using and improving on internal systems to pro- actively monitor content related to Covid-19,” it said.

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