What you need to know
- Twitter has expanded its test feature for flagging misleading tweets.
- The experimental capability is being rolled out to Brazil, Spain and the Philippines.
- The test kicked off in August of last year to explore ways to identify and remove misinformation on its platform.
Over the last few years, Twitter has launched several initiatives to combat misinformation on its platform, including a crowd-sourced content moderation tool called Birdwatch and a labeling system to remove false COVID-19 tweets. The service is currently experimenting with a new method of removing misleading content from the site.
Twitter has announced the expansion of a test feature that allows users to report content that they believe is misleading. The experiment began in August of last year in the United States, South Korea, and Australia. After tapping the report tweet button, participants would be able to flag a tweet as misleading.
The feature is now launching in the Philippines, Brazil and Spain across various platforms, including the best Android phones. This seems to suggest that Twitter's initial phase of experiment was a success, although it did not really take action on every report it received since the test began.
Today we're expanding this test feature to folks tweeting from Brazil, Spain, or the Philippines. Till now we've received around 3M reports from you all, calling out Tweets that violate our policies & helping us understand new misinformation trends.
Stay tuned for more to come. https://t.co/wB3P66Dl1QToday we're expanding this test feature to folks tweeting from Brazil, Spain, or the Philippines. Till now we've received around 3M reports from you all, calling out Tweets that violate our policies & helping us understand new misinformation trends.
Stay tuned for more to come. https://t.co/wB3P66Dl1Q— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 17, 2022January 17, 2022
That said, the social networking service said some 3 million reports came in since last year, "calling out tweets that violate our policies and helping us understand new misinformation trends." The real goal of the test was to determine how to "improve the speed and scale" of Twitter's broader efforts against misinformation.
Twitter isn't alone on that front. Facebook started testing an informed sharing method last year, prompting users to read an article before sharing it. Google also updated its monetization policy on advertisers and creators to block content that promotes false claims about climate change.
The latest expansion is by no means a guarantee that the spread of misleading content on Twitter will be significantly reduced, but it does allow a wider group of users to contribute to that effort.
