(New York) The social network Twitter announced Thursday that it will put warnings on certain obviously misleading messages about the war in Ukraine, as part of a new policy on misinformation in times of crisis.
Posted yesterday at 2:55 p.m.
To read the tweets deemed problematic, you will first have to click on a message announcing that spreading false or misleading information can have harmful consequences on people’s real lives, explained the official in charge of integrity issues on the platform, Yoel Roth, in a publication.
Warnings will be added to tweets that are more visible or from accounts such as media affiliated with governments or government entities.
Additionally, it will not be possible to “like”, retweet or share problematic posts.
As soon as Twitter has determined that a message is false, the platform will also make sure not to automatically accelerate its spread.
The goal is to “promote credible and authoritative information” and to ensure that “viral misinformation is not amplified or endorsed” by Twitter’s algorithms, Roth said.
A policy to be redeployed
This new policy will guide the group’s efforts in the event of armed conflict, emergency health situations or major natural disasters, starting with the war in Ukraine.
“To determine whether claims are misleading, we require verification of multiple credible and publicly available sources, including evidence from conflict monitoring groups, humanitarian organizations, individuals conducting public source investigations into the internet, journalists, etc. “, detailed Mr. Roth.
Twitter plans to target, for example, tweets that misrepresent the situation on the ground of a conflict or report false allegations about the use of force, war crimes or humanitarian response.
The Californian group had already taken measures to try to reduce the circulation of official Russian propaganda on the social network, for example by blocking the accounts of the Russian media RT and Sputnik in the European Union or by no longer “recommending” the accounts. Russian government to users.
This new policy is announced at a time when the social network is about to be bought by Elon Musk, who said he wanted to strengthen freedom of expression on the platform by limiting content moderation.