(Reuters) – Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) said on Thursday that it will start putting warnings in front of some false information about the conflict in Ukraine and limit the spread of claims that have been debunked by humanitarian groups or other reliable sources.
The step-up against false information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation,” is part of a new policy that explains how Twitter will handle false information during crises.
People are paying more attention to how social media sites find and deal with false information. Twitter has agreed to sell itself to Elon Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA). Musk has said that he thinks the site should be a place where people can speak freely.
The new warnings will let people know that a tweet broke Twitter’s rules, but they will still be able to see it and comment on it. The platform won’t share or recommend these tweets, and people won’t be able to retweet them either.
During a call with reporters, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth, said that this approach could be “a more effective way to step in to stop harm while still protecting and preserving speech on Twitter.”
The company will put labels on misleading tweets from verified users or official government profiles, which are high-profile accounts. It will also give more weight to information that could hurt people on the ground.
Twitter said that a crisis is a situation where many people’s lives, physical safety, health, or basic needs are at risk. It said that at first, the policy would focus on international armed conflicts, but that it would also cover mass shootings and natural disasters.
“The timeline for this work started before the war in Ukraine started, but as the war in Ukraine went on, the need for this policy became even more clear,” said Roth.