Twitter Says Labels and Warnings Slowed Spread of False Election Claims
November 12 2020 - 4:29PM
Dow Jones News
By Georgia Wells
Twitter Inc. plans to continue its policy of labeling what it
deems misleading information, despite persistent criticism from
President Trump and other conservatives that it silences their
commentary on the election.
In a blog post Thursday, Twitter said it had labeled
approximately 300,000 tweets for content that was disputed and
potentially misleading, representing 0.2% of all U.S.
election-related tweets sent between Oct. 27 and Nov. 11.
The company said its data shows the labels significantly
decreased the spread of misinformation across the platform. Twitter
said it is reverting to its previous practices on recommendations
and other products, after seeing little effect from those changes
made ahead of the election.
"These enforcement actions remain part of our continued strategy
to add context and limit the spread of misleading information about
election processes around the world on Twitter," Vijaya Gadde and
Kayvon Beykpour said in a blog post. Ms. Gadde is Twitter's legal,
policy, and trust and safety lead. Mr. Beykpour serves as product
lead at Twitter.
Twitter said during the election period it also covered 456 of
the misleading tweets with a warning message that further limited
the engagement features of those posts.
Those labels and warning messages appeared to decrease the
spread of misleading information. Twitter said the tweets that
received the labels and warnings saw a 29% decrease in shares, in
part due to the prompts that warned users of their disputed
information. Approximately 75% of the people who viewed those
tweets saw them after Twitter applied the label or warning message,
Twitter said.
Twitter earlier on Thursday placed a label on a tweet from
President Trump about alleged voter fraud, saying the claim was
disputed. The move continued a pattern in which Twitter has
regularly labeled Mr. Trump's posts about the election as
misleading or disputed, fueling calls from the president and his
supporters that the company is biased against him.
U.S. officials have characterized the 2020 election as the most
secure in the country's history.
An October study led by a Stanford University political science
researcher found Mr. Trump's tweets questioning the U.S. election's
legitimacy are effective in shaping his supporters' beliefs that
the outcome is rigged.
Twitter executives have said they act without political
motivations. Chief Executive Jack Dorsey is scheduled to testify
Nov. 17 before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the company's
decision last month to block a pair of New York Post articles it
said were based on documents obtained from the laptop of Hunter
Biden.
Twitter blocked the Post's account for two weeks, before
changing its rules to allow the newspaper back on the platform.
Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is also scheduled to testify
before the committee.
Ahead of the U.S. election, Twitter and other social-media
companies faced pressure from lawmakers, candidates and watchdog
groups to reduce the spread of misinformation that could undermine
Americans' confidence in the electoral process. While Facebook also
added some labels and reduced the recommendation of certain content
on its platform, Twitter's intervention involved more proactive
measures to label certain disputed claims and required users to
click through labels to see the content.
The tech platforms have hoped to avoid a repeat of 2016, when
foreign actors, including Russia's Internet Research Agency, spread
viral messages on Facebook and Twitter that appeared to try to sow
divisions and encourage some Americans not to vote.
In an effort to undercut the effectiveness of conspiracy
theories, Twitter this cycle also showed users a series of messages
intended to "pre-bunk" potentially false claims. These messages
included statements that the election results were likely to be
delayed and that voting by mail is safe and legitimate. Twitter
said users saw these prompts 389 million times.
Twitter during the election also encouraged users to add their
own context when amplifying content. To do this, Twitter added more
steps for users to reshare tweets, and prompted them to write
something when doing so.
"This change introduced some friction, and gave people an extra
moment to consider why and what they were adding to the
conversation," Ms. Gadde and Mr. Beykpour said in the blog post.
Since making that change in late October, Twitter said it observed
a 20% decrease in tweet sharing.
Twitter also said it would be sharing a comprehensive report on
the election early next year.
--Emily Glazer contributed to this article.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 12, 2020 16:14 ET (21:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024