Twitter to hide tweets spreading fake information in a crisis

Twitter has announced a new policy to mitigate the spread of misinformation in a crisis by suppressing tweets that are deemed to be sharing misinformation.

Revealed in a new blog post, Twitter has detailed its new “crisis misinformation policy” which aims to “ensure viral misinformation isn’t amplified or recommended by us during crises,” as to not “undermine public trust and cause further harm to already vulnerable communities.”

Through its new policy, as soon as Twitter has “evidence that a claim may be misleading” it will immediately clamp down on how much it can be shared and discovered on the platform. This means that tweets that are deemed misleading won’t be amplified or recommended through the Home timeline, Search, and Explore. 

In addition to suppressing tweets containing misleading information, Twitter claims that it will also “prioritize adding warning notices to highly visible Tweets and Tweets from high profile accounts, such as state-affiliated media accounts, verified, official government accounts.” 

In the blog post, Twitter detailed a number of examples of tweets that it may add its new content warning to, so you know exactly what to tweet and or not tweet in a time of crisis. The example tweets are as follows: 

• False coverage or event reporting, or information that mischaracterizes conditions on the ground as a conflict evolves;
• False allegations regarding use of force, incursions on territorial sovereignty, or around the use of weapons;
• Demonstrably false or misleading allegations of war crimes or mass atrocities against specific populations;
• False information regarding international community response, sanctions, defensive actions, or humanitarian operations.

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1527318176119554049

At first, this new policy is focused on international armed conflict, such as the ongoing war in Ukraine, however, the soon-to-be Elon Musk owned social media giant is planning to expand its policy in the future to include additional forms of crisis.