Twitter to show a prompt when you try to like a labelled tweet

Twitter will soon show a warning if you tried to retweet a tweet that the company has labelled for being misleading. The feature will begin rolling out to iOS and desktop users later this week. Android users will also receive the feature in the coming weeks.

Announcing the new functionality, Twitter said that such prompts had decreased Quote Tweets of misleading content by 29%.

“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,” said Twitter.

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This comes after social networking platforms including Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook took additional steps to counter fake news, misinformation and conspiracy theories during and after the US presidential elections. Twitter in particular took drastic measures such as putting a label to tweets that it deems misleading. The company even went on to the label some of the tweets from US President Donald Trump.

That said, social networking platforms have faced criticism for being unable to tackle the spread of fake, misleading, and abusive content. Just recently, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey were grilled on election response by the US senators. Both CEOs defended their content moderation practices at a congressional hearing.