Twitter no longer recommends misleading information during crises

Twitter will try to prevent the spread of disinformation during crises. The social media company wants to do this by having the content of tweets fact-checked by sources, after which information found to be misleading is no longer recommended and is given a banner.

Twitter states that it will enlist the help of multiple reliable, publicly available sources for this. The company refers to humanitarian organizations, open-source researchers, journalists and monitoring groups, but does not specify which ones.

Once Twitter has evidence that certain information on its platform is misleading, the company will no longer recommend that information to other users. This on the timelines, in the search results, and on the Explore page. Popular tweets or tweets from high-traffic Twitter accounts, such as state-related accounts, verified accounts, and government accounts, also receive a warning banner if they make claims that Twitter sources say are misleading. That banner can be clicked away if a user still wants to read the tweet. The tweet can therefore no longer be liked, shared or retweeted.

Twitter also clarifies in the blog post which situations they consider to be crisis situations. “In our view, a crisis is a situation where there has been widespread danger to human life, the physical integrity of persons, people’s health and basic amenities of life,” it said. According to the company, this definition is also used by the United Nations.

Twitter banner in case of misinformation