Twitter mentioned on Thursday that it was including new insurance policies aimed toward combating misinformation concerning the warfare in Ukraine and different crises like pure disasters, an enlargement of its guidelines in opposition to deceptive content material.
The corporate introduced the brand new coverage at the same time as it’s within the strategy of being acquired by Elon Musk, the billionaire chief government of Tesla and SpaceX, who has mentioned he intends to eliminate Twitter’s content material moderation insurance policies.
Underneath its new rule, Twitter will downplay tweets that unfold misinformation about crises like pure disasters and wars that might unfold quickly throughout the platform with out intervention. The corporate will stop customers from retweeting deceptive disaster content material and block it from showing in distinguished areas, like the house timeline and search options.
In some instances, Twitter will add a warning label to disaster misinformation, alerting customers to deceptive content material, the corporate mentioned. Deceptive tweets from political figures, verified accounts and state-sponsored media shops shall be prioritized for labeling, Twitter mentioned.
The disaster misinformation coverage is meant to deal with misinformation about worldwide armed conflicts, together with the warfare in Ukraine, mentioned Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of security and web site integrity. Ukrainian officers and Russian diplomats have used their official Twitter accounts to share false and deceptive details about the warfare, and their posts have been extensively considered and shared on the platform.
However the coverage has been beneath improvement since final 12 months, Mr. Roth famous. On the time, misinformation about wildfires in California have been spreading quickly on Twitter and inflicting disruptions for firefighters. The brand new guidelines might be utilized after mass shootings, pure disasters and different world conflicts, Mr. Roth mentioned, or any state of affairs that poses “a widespread risk to life, bodily security, well being or fundamental subsistence.”
Twitter relied on the United Nations’ definition of a humanitarian disaster for its coverage, and mentioned it will use data from humanitarian teams, battle displays and unbiased information organizations to evaluate whether or not a tweet was deceptive.
The transfer to cease selling tweets with out eradicating them altogether displays Twitter’s latest strategy to content material moderation. After years of criticism from Republican leaders who accused Twitter of censorship and Democratic officers who claimed its guidelines have been too lax, the corporate has shifted away from merely deleting tweets or leaving them up. As a substitute, Twitter has begun to restrict the viral unfold of false and deceptive content material, and added fact-checking labels.
“Content material moderation is extra than simply leaving up or taking down content material, and we’ve expanded the vary of actions we might take to make sure they’re proportionate to the severity of the potential hurt,” Mr. Roth mentioned. “We’ve discovered that not amplifying or recommending sure content material, including context by way of labels and, in extreme instances, disabling engagement with the tweets, are efficient methods to mitigate hurt, whereas nonetheless preserving speech and data of important world occasions.”
However the coverage might be short-lived. Mr. Musk has indicated that if his acquisition of Twitter closes, he would eliminate practically all its content material moderation insurance policies. Mr. Musk has advised that fairly than attempt to restrict misinformation, Twitter ought to reasonable solely content material that violates native legal guidelines.
