In an effort to fight the menace of fake news, the microblogging platform Twitter has initiated a move to label fake news as ‘manipulated media’. The platform indulges news and opinions in tweets from high profile individuals and hence, attracts a lot of fake news as well. The site has said this labeling would help not mislead people and go to the extent of removing tweets that could potentially cause harm to people’s safety or suppress voters.
“It’s our responsibility to create rules on Twitter that are fair and set clear expectations for everyone on our service.” begins Twitter’s latest blog
A warning will be flashed to individuals before they share or like or retweet tweets that are manipulated media. The visibility of these tweets will be reduced on the platform so they don’t garner attention. There will also be a landing page created to give more understanding and clarifications for the same.
On March 5, 2020, Twitter’s teams will begin labeling Tweets that altered and fake. Their plan to identify factors determining manipulated media is explained on their blog.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Our new rule: You may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm. In addition, we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide context. <a href=”https://t.co/VN8uGyVJgq”>https://t.co/VN8uGyVJgq</a></p>— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) <a href=”https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1224799841466777600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 4, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
This comes at a time when the spread of fake news has been rampant across the globe and the haunting rise of deepfake videos which make it difficult to differentiate from the real video. The platform has also mentioned they will also be vetting video and audio files, subtitles and if the media is fabricating the image of a real person.
However, Twitter stays adamant about working to fight this problem. Their blog ended saying-
“This will be a challenge and we will make errors along the way — we appreciate the patience. However, we’re committed to doing this right. Updating our rules in public and with democratic participation will continue to be core to our approach.”