Twitter will start labelling COVID-19 disinformation

Twitter announced that the company will start labelling tweets with COVID-19 disinformation. This new policy targets claims confirmed to be false by experts such as public health authorities or those that are contested or yet unknown. It will also involve different types of content moderation. In some cases, labels will redirect users to confirmed facts about the virus. Other tweets might receive stronger warnings and readers will be warned the tweet conflicts with expert opinion. Through the platform, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity, explained that the policy would “apply to anyone sharing misleading information that meets the requirement of our policy, including world leaders”. Finally, this new policy will also be applied retroactively, to tweets posted before it was approved.