Twitter will add warnings in tweets with disputed or potentially harmful information. Until now, the network only took the step of suppressing messages that included information that could lead to serious harm, such as asking for the social distance to be eliminated or that wearing a mask poses a health hazard.
This Monday, Twitter has announced that it is expanding the categories where it believes it should intervene, but with less action than deleting the message. That action will consist of notice next to the tweet – or about it – to obtain more context information or to warn that the tweet is in conflict with what the health authorities say. “People want intervention so that we give more context, but not the elimination of messages unless they are very damaging cases,” Nick Pickles, director of Public Policies for Twitter, explained in a virtual press conference to announce the measure. “They don’t want us to tell users what to think,” he added.
Twitter will now distinguish between misinformation with potentially serious consequences, disputed and unverified claims. The unverified information will be, for example, about a possible medicine whose capacity has not yet been proven. The disputed claims are those that cast doubt on something that there is already a consensus, such as the origin of the coronavirus. The Twitter message in those cases will lead to a page managed by the network where context information will be displayed for the user to draw their own conclusions. “Our goal is to promote critical thinking,” said Pickels.
All networks are managing with conceptual balances often difficult for users to understand the informational challenges of the pandemic. It is inevitable that the notices along with tweets will lead to user complaints because, in some way, they will question their messages. The decision on which tweets will be flagged will be from Twitter and something they call “trusted partners” who, according to Pickles, are non-governmental organizations, think tanks, or independent researchers, although he has not revealed any names. These partners are both global and linked to each country.
Twitter, however, will not wait for the opinion of any fact-checker to act, as Facebook does, for example: “The intention is to reflect the debate as it occurs, not wait for a verdict,” he said. Network executives have emphasized the character of Twitter as the place where people discuss live precisely to reach or not some of these conclusions. Before the decision, Twitter will use technology to know what discussions or messages it should intervene in.
Twitter will begin to apply this measure today in some 40 languages. Some tweets before this Monday will already appear with these warnings, so it is likely that controversies will jump quickly. “This measure will apply to all Twitter users,” said Yoel Roth, director of Integrity, during the presentation, referring to the fact that statements by politicians or celebrities will also be affected.
Roth noted that this step is similar to the one Twitter took in February with manipulated or synthetic videos (deep fakes), which would also carry a label that warned that the content was not what it seemed. It has been used only a couple of times, the last time a few hours ago with a video from the Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence. As in the tweet next to these lines, these messages will not be seen if the user is not logged in or in the same on the network: you must enter with your own account to see it and access the link.
The linked Twitter page where you will help resolve disputes may include a selection of expert tweets, external specialist websites, or resources on the Twitter help page. “Our goal is not to do fact-checking of the entire internet, but to help give context and say what can hurt,” said Pickles. It is clear that the size of Twitter would not allow anything of great magnitude and that the creation of this method will serve to put bandaids on, especially bleeding cases. The network creates this resource to combat misinformation about the pandemic but does not rule out expanding it to other areas in the future.
Source: Tech Crunch
