A new test from Twitter will finally allow users to report “misleading” tweets. The company says it’s testing the feature for “some people” in the US, South Korea and Australia. Though only an experiment, it’s a significant step for Twitter which has previously had limited reporting tools for misinformation on its service.
With the change though, users will now be able to report political and health misinformation, with sub-categories for election and COVID-19 related tweets, The Verge. That tracks with other fact checking and misinformation-busting efforts Twitter has made over the past year and a half. The company has previously introduced labels and PSAs to debunk and misinformation on its platform.
We’re assessing if this is an effective approach so we’re starting small. We may not take action on and cannot respond to each report in the experiment, but your input will help us identify trends so that we can improve the speed and scale of our broader misinformation work.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) August 17, 2021
At the moment, it’s not clear how reported tweets will be handled. Unlike Facebook, which uses a large network of fact checkers to debunk falsehoods, Twitter’s fact checking initiatives have been more narrowly focused. In a tweet, the company said that users shouldn’t expect the company to respond to every report but the reports “will help us identify trends so that we can improve the speed and scale of our broader misinformation work.”
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