Twitter to start hiding False Information during periods of Crisis.

The Company has recently announced that it will be making major strides in the effort to deal with the constantly rising misinformation on its Platform, as the Company has put forth a new ‘Crisis Misinformation Policy’ that will be strongly directed towards blocking and removing the promotion and increasing popularity of certain tweets that may be considered as spreading misinformation.

The Crux of the Policy

Twitter has acknowledged the fact that especially during times of Worldwide Crisis, Hoax tweets and information in general is more susceptible to becoming viral, invoking a huge response from the General Public which is most of the time unnecessary. This can have an adverse effect on already vulnerable communities all around the World, while also diminishing the qualities of Public Trust. With this Policy, Twitter aims to greatly reduce the spread of the most open and visible misleading content on their Platform, particularly that Content which can cause severe harm to the general public. With this in mind, Twitter began developing this Policy last year, and hopes to begin enforcing it initially on the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, for the Long-term implementation of the Policy, the Company is optimistic that will be perfectly enforceable around other numerous emergent global crises.

How the Policy will address Harms

The Company is knowledgeable of the fact that distinguishing between information that may be true or false, is no easy task. To combat this challenge, Twitter will require verification of a specific information from various credible sources. This information could include Evidence from Conflict Monitoring Groups, Investigators, Journalists and Humanitarian Organizations among many other well-versed sources. Moreover, Twitter has also brought to light the fact that Content is shared quickly during certain periods of crisis, enabling potentially harming content to immediately rack up an enormous amount of views and engagement from the General Public. In order to mitigate this specific aspect of the spread of misinformation, as soon as viable evidence is provided to the Company, Twitter will immediately take the necessary actions to halt the harming content from the Home, Search and Explore timelines, while simultaneously rendering it unable to be further amplified or recommended across their platform. Furthermore, Twitter will also prioritize adding warning labels to certain high-profile accounts, such as Media and Official Government Accounts, this will also allow the tweet to be blocked from Algorithmic Promotion built within the Platform.

The expected changes to the Average User Experience

As is expected, the normal User Experience will certainly change with the implementation of this Policy. As mentioned before, Twitter will begin to start putting Warning Notices to certain tweets that may be considered as Harmful or Spreading Misinformation. The User will be required to click through the Warning Notice in order to view the tweet in question. In the Warning Notice, there will be a link that will direct the User to attaining more information regarding this very Policy and why the tweet that they wish to view is showing a Warning Notice, this link will be attached to a ‘Learn more’ button that will be found at the very bottom of the Warning Notice. In addition to this Warning Notice, the potential harmful tweet’s Likes, Retweets and Shares will also be disabled, effectively removing the option to recommend or further spread the harmful tweet in question. Twitter is adamant about the fact this Policy does not have a negative effect on the preservation of Free Speech on its Platform, therefore Strong Commentary of certain topics, Fact Checking and Personal Anecdote will remain exempted from the criteria of this Policy.