Twitter will warn you if you ‘like’ misleading tweets
Twitter started flagging tweets for disputed and potentially misleading content this year ahead of the 2020 Presidential Elections. With the feature in place, the website will show you a warning every time you try to retweet or quote a post that’s been labeled as such in an effort to curb the spread of misinformation. Now, the social network has expanded the feature so that you’ll also get a warning if you attempt to “like” a disputed tweet. Tapping the heart button on a post that’s been labeled as misleading will trigger a prompt with a “Find out more” button to pop up.
Giving context on why a labeled Tweet is misleading under our election, COVID-19, and synthetic and manipulated media rules is vital.
These prompts helped decrease Quote Tweets of misleading information by 29% so we’re expanding them to show when you tap to like a labeled Tweet. pic.twitter.com/WTK164nMfZ
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 23, 2020
App experimental feature researcher Jane Manchun Wong discovered the expanded function earlier this month. The tweets she tested, which were related to the elections, showed a warning that says “Official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted.”
Twitter is working on misinformation warning on Likes, just like the ones for Quote Tweets / Retweets pic.twitter.com/BLlmaw5RZK
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) November 9, 2020
A week after election day, Twitter revealed that it labeled 300,000 tweets as misleading between October 27th and November 11th. Out of all those, 456 were blocked from being retweeted or liked and were hidden behind a warning before they could even be viewed. The company says its efforts have led to a 29 percent decrease in quoted tweets containing misleading information. According to The Verge, the feature expansion is rolling out on the web and on iOS to all users around the world this week. Android users, meanwhile, will start seeing prompts in the coming weeks.
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