Twitter announced a new policy aimed at stopping the spread of manipulated or false information on the platform, which will go into effect next month.
The social media platform will no longer allow users to share deceptively edited or manipulated media “that are likely to cause harm,” Del Harvey, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety, said in a phone call with reporters on Tuesday. The new rules, which will go in place on March 5, are based on more than 6,500 responses in an effort that was first announced last October.
Any tweet that the platform reviews under this new rule will be evaluated based on three questions: Are the media synthetic or manipulated? Are the media shared in a deceptive manner? Is the content likely to affect public safety or cause serious harm?
Depending on the answers to those questions, Twitter representatives can “provide additional context on the tweet,” which could range from applying “a label to the tweet,” “show a warning to people before they retweet or like the tweet,” reducing its visibility, or providing additional clarifications or explanations, according to a blog post from the site.
Harvey also explained that tweets that are more likely to affect public safety or cause serious harm are more likely to be removed from the platform, while repeat offenses could lead to suspensions or bans from the platform entirely.
In one notable example, last spring a manipulated video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking went viral. The video in question slowed her speech down, and some used it to question Pelosi’s competence and mental state. While Twitter initially allowed the video to remain on the site, it would now be flagged.
[Also read: Twitter has not seen an uptick in disinformation amid spread of coronavirus]
