Twitter testing reporting for COVID-19 misinformation

What you need to know

• Twitter is testing a new report feature for misleading tweets.
• The feature is available to some users in the U.S., South Korea, and Australia.
• It includes a category for labeling COVID-19 misinformation.

Earlier this week, Twitter announced that it was testing a new feature for reporting misleading tweets, including content that contains COVID-19 misinformation.

Twitter announced earlier this week that it was testing the new featuring in the U.S., South Korea, and Australia, where a select number of users will now see a new report option for 'It's misleading', for tweets that do exactly that. The company says that it's assessing "if this is an effective approach" so is "starting small." Twitter also says that it man not take action on all tweets and won't be able to respond to every report in the experiment. Rather, it says that user input will help "identify trends" to improve the speed and scale of its broader misinformation work.

Now the feature has rolled out it has emerged that the new 'It's misleading' category includes a COVID-19 category. As noted by Katie Mack on Twitter, when you select 'Report Tweet', and 'It's Misleading' you can see a category for 'Health' that includes an option for COVID-19, and 'Other health information'. As Twitter noted at launch, the screen includes a disclaimer stating Twitter might not action the report, but that submitting a report could help it "develop new ways to reduce misleading info." Twitter says in this disclaimer that measures could include limiting the tweet's visibility, providing additional context, or even creating new policies.

The new feature is available for testing for a select number of users in Australia, South Korea, and the U.S.