The social of the little bird takes a small further step towards a cleaner and less toxic environment: users will be able to report tweets containing false or misleading news.
A new way to keep at bay misleading information and fake news that sometimes find fertile ground on the web is coming from Twitter. This is an additional type of reporting to those already present, which members can use to indicate what are those misleading content and new trends related to them.
The confirmation of integration comes from the site of chirps, through the official profile called Twitter Safety that aims to make the social network a safer place. Among the actions developed, both those related to improving the user experience through the adoption of improved protection systems, and others related to the obscuration or removal of fake news that make the misinformation the object of recall. With the newly introduced tool, the platform tries to take another step forward compared to the past, in order to protect its users from the flourishing of fake news that can cause confusion, even outside the virtual boundaries.
Fake tweets, how to report them
The reporting method that has recently made its appearance will follow in all respects the one already in use. It will be sufficient to click on the icon in the shape of three dots in the upper right corner of the box of each post and then select the menu item "Report tweet".
Among the reasons, however, you can choose the wording "It is misleading", from here will start the investigation of the social, which will ask the user for more information on the topic addressed by the comment or sharing: politics, health or other. Once the topic has been chosen, the following screen will ask further questions in order to investigate the issue.
In the event of publications related to the political sphere, for example, Twitter will invite users to specify if what they are indicating is related to the elections or to provide more details. Like what already happens, the platform will allow to stop following the author of the publication, make him mute or block him (without prejudice to the possibility of reversing the process at any time directly from the settings).
According to what reported by the Twitter Safety team, at least during this first phase Twitter will not act against everything that will be reported and related to the new category. These indications, although in the absence of an explicit reaction from the control group, will in any case help to identify new trends that are taking place on the platform and study strategic approaches to evaluation for the future.
Tweet reporting, when it arrives
The feature dedicated to reporting misleading content has been integrated only in three countries, the United States, South Korea and Australia but, soon, it could arrive in the accounts of users in the rest of the world. In fact, the platform's intention is to extend it globally once the tests currently underway are complete.