Twitter has added a new alerting prompt to decrease misinformation spread, this time to alert users when they share a tweet that has been flagged as misinformation under the platform’s rules.
As you can see, the prompt will warn the user wants to retweet or quote-tweet that the claim in the original message in disagreement, and relate them to more data.
As explained by Twitter:
“Our work to limit the spread of misleading information goes beyond elections. Starting today, before you Retweet or Quote Tweet any labeled Tweet that breaks our misleading information rules, you’ll see a prompt.”
The included dispute in the tweet process would help to slow users from spreading false claims and misinformation. Also, Twitter has included similar for tweets that the re-tweeter has not opened the linked full article, while it has also removed the normal retweet option completely for US users in the lead up to the US election.
But still, you can retweet by not writing anything into the ‘Quote Tweet’ author box, yet the idea is that by alerting users to add their own thoughts, or at least think about why they are retweeting a message, it would reduce blind increasing of messages, and give more details to the debate.
Also, Twitter has seen results already from these new prompts. The platform lately reported that users opened articles more often with a percentage of 40% when they saw the new read before retweeting prompt.
This recent update, as twitter stated, will apply to all tweets flagged as including misleading data, and that little bit of pushback may make more people think more before spreading such messages.
Indeed, a lot of issues identified with the Twitter increase of such content in the past have linked to the bots use, with some reports recommending that bot swarms armies are used to maximize specific political messages, and impact the subsequent conversation.
Twitter us tackling this component too, and in a group, these measurements have to decrease the impact of retweeting questionable claims in tweets, in all means, moving forward.
