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Twitter users will soon see new warning labels on false and misleading tweets, redesigned to make them more effective and less confusing.
The labels, which the company has been testing since July, are an update from those Twitter used for election misinformation before and after the 2020 US presidential contest. Those labels drew criticism for not doing enough to keep people from spreading obvious falsehoods.
The redesign, launching worldwide this week, is an attempt to make them more useful and easier to notice, among other things.
Experts say such labels, also used by Facebook, can be helpful to users but can also allow social media platforms to sidestep the more difficult work of content moderation – that is, deciding whether or not to remove posts, photos and videos that spread conspiracies and falsehoods.
Twitter only labels three types of misinformation: manipulated media, such as videos and audio that have been deceptively altered in ways that could cause real-world harm; election and voting-related misinformation; and false or misleading tweets related to COVID-19.
The new designs adds orange and red to the labels so they stand out more than the old version, which was blue and blended in with the general colour scheme of Twitter’s branding.
Twitter said tests showed if a label is too eye-catching, it can lead more people to retweet and reply to the original message.
The social media giant said on Tuesday the redesigned labels showed a 17% increase in ‘click-through rate’, which means more people clicked on the redesigned labels to read the information debunking false or misleading tweets.
Misleading tweets with the redesigned label – an orange icon and the words ‘stay informed’ – were also less likely to be retweeted or liked than those with the original labels.
Tweets with more serious misinformation – for instance, a tweet claiming vaccines cause autism – will get a stronger label, with the word ‘misleading’ and a red exclamation point.
It will not be possible to reply to, like or retweet these messages.
With AAP
Nina Alvarez is a writer and content producer. Her interests include writing, particularly about different forms of digital communication and the many ways it can impact the flow of information through varying demographics.
