Twitter working on three new labels to warn users about misinformation

Twitter is reportedly working on three new warning labels designed to tackle misinformation on the platform, according to a new leak that has surfaced on the microblogging platform.

According to a screenshot shared by researcher Jane Manchun Wong, Twitter is currently working on three warning labels, namely “Get the latest”, “Stay informed” and “Misleading”. The labels, which appear to have been created for specific kinds of misinformation.

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Wong is popular on Twitter for her work on reverse engineering a wide range of apps and services like Messenger, Facebook, and Twitter, to tease upcoming features – such as Twitter's emoji reactions for tweets. On Tuesday, she tweeted three sample tweets that showed off the new labels on the microblogging service.

“Snorted 60 grams (sic) of dihydrogen monoxide and I’m not feeling so well now,” the first tweet reads, which triggers the “Get the latest” label to show more information about H2O, or water.

The second tweet says “In 12 hours, darkness will ascend in parts of the world. Stay tuned,” triggering the “Stay informed” label which also offers information about the concept of timezones.

Wong also tweeted “We eat. Turtles eat. Therefore we are turtles,” which triggered Twitter’s last new label – “Misleading”. Users are offered details about logical fallacies, which they can access by tapping the “Find out more” link under the label.

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The researcher’s discoveries seem to have found validation from Twitter employee Yoel Roth, who retweeted Wong’s screenshots and added that these are some “early experiments” with new design treatments for the company’s labels on misinformation. He also asked for feedback and user opinion in the tweet.

It is unclear when Twitter will roll out these new misinformation labels on the platform, or if they will even make it out of testing. Marking these tweets with specific reasons and suggestions to better understand the context suggests that the process might not be automated and responses may be generated based on the tweet – we will know more once Twitter officially announces the feature so stay tuned.