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Twitter will add warning labels on posts that are identified as providing misinformation about the war in Ukraine, the social media company announced Thursday.
The move is part of a larger effort to flag false information during crises, including wars, plagues and natural disasters. Twitter said it is aiming to amplify credible reports from reliable sources while downplaying and isolating misinformation.
“Around the world, people use Twitter to find reliable information in real time. During periods of crisis — such as situations of armed conflict, public health emergencies, and large-scale natural disasters — access to credible, authoritative information and resources is all the more critical,” Yoel Rother, the company’s head of safety and integrity, said in a news release.
Twitter will hide an offending tweet from search results and its main timeline “as soon as we have evidence that a claim may be misleading,” according to the release. The platform will disable functions that would spread the tweet, including like, retweet and share features. Twitter users can still see the tweet but will be required to click through the warning notice to view the post, the release said.
Twitter will “prioritize” pinning warning notices on “highly visible” tweets and those from “high profile” accounts, including ones run by state-affiliated media outlets and governments, the release said.
The platform said it worked with global experts and human rights organizations to create the policy, which will cover “situations in which there is a widespread threat to life, physical safety, health, or basic subsistence.” Twitter’s first version of its crisis policy deals with armed conflict in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the platform will update and expand that policy to fit other crises, the release said.