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  • Redes.Twitter will eliminate false tweets about coronavirus

Twitter has again updated its policy on harmful content to add a new measure against unreliable information about the coronavirus: labels with additional data . The company announced at the end of March that it would eliminate the false tweets and with this new movement it wants to reach messages that it does not consider should be deleted, but may pose a danger. This tool will be applied retroactively, so it can appear in tweets sent before the announcement.

"Our goal is to facilitate the search for credible information on Twitter and limit the dissemination of potentially harmful and misleading content," explains the social network on its blog. Thus, these messages will provide "context and additional information" in tweets that contain "controversial or misleading information" about the disease.

The labels may provide "additional explanations and clarifications" when they believe that the risk of a tweet causing harm "is less serious", but it is still a case in which "people may continue to be confused or feel cheated."

Twitter compares this measure with the decision made at the beginning of the year to tag the manipulated videos ( deepfakes , in practice) to stop the hoaxes. A link will appear in the message that will take you to a page - created by the company itself or from a "trusted external source" - with additional information on what was said in the tweet in question.

Similarly, depending on how dangerous they consider a tweet, alerts could appear next to it. In this case, they will warn that the information that appears in it differs from what the public health experts say. The tweet will only be visible after reading this warning.

There will be three categories that will make the company act: misleading information (that is, data that is already known to be false, as this has been shown by the health authorities), controversial claims (those whose veracity is in doubt or unknown) and claims not verified (it is not known if they are true). Based on Twitter's policy, these types of tweets could previously be removed, making the measure less restrictive.

The messages will be detected by "internal systems" that monitor the content that is about Covid-19. These, they explain, help them ensure that the tool is not used to amplify the reach of tweets with their tags and to quickly detect content with high visibility. In any case, they will continue to expand the action categories and explore the use of labels in content not related to this disease.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Coronavirus
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