Twitter announced a new policy on Thursday, which prevents certain messages from spreading if they are seen to be false.
“Content moderation is more than just leaving up or taking down content,” said Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity in an official blog post. “And we’ve expanded the range of actions we may take to ensure they’re proportionate to the severity of the potential harm.”
The new policy places emphasis on false reporting of events, accusations involving weapons or the use of force, or broader misinformation regarding atrocities.
For emergencies, it can be hard to verify or fact-check because the speed of events make it difficult for moderators. Hoax tweets and other misinformation regularly go viral during emergencies, creating a challenge for moderators.
While tweets classified as misinformation will not necessarily be deleted or banned, Twitter will add the warning label “click here to see more tweets like this” and prevent them from being promoted via algorithms.
The new standard will not be applied to content concerning the crisis in Ukraine, but rather only to occasions where there is a widespread threat to life, general safety, health and basic subsistence.
The policy comes at a delicate time for Twitter, with the company’s approved sale to Elon Musk in a confusing limbo. Musk has pledged to scale back moderation systems at the company in favor of a maximalist view of free speech. With Musk’s deal on hold pending an investigation into bots, the implementation of his ideas is unclear.
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