- Twitter announces a major set of changes in its platform on Friday
- Changes are made to keep the controversies and misinformation at a bay during U.S. elections
- The changes are to be rolled out from 20th October
Twitter is currently aiming at changing how Election misinformation is being spread. Social media is one of the controversial platforms for misinformation spread. Talking about United States elections, social media is the most potential platform. It serves as a community for statistics and information to its users.
However, on Friday Twitter announced a major set of changes. These changes connect to the way its platform would work during the upcoming elections.
Social media has always played a major role in U.S. elections. Relating to this sense a well-planned strategy is vital to avoid fallouts. The new plans of Twitter are meant to limit this hassle. Twitter will try a new scheme to discourage its users from retweeting negative posts.
In order to do that they will have to add their own commentary to the retweets. Rolling out on 20th October these changes will remain in place till the “end of election week”. Instead of retweeting the platform will elicit users to go for a quote tweet. Though, it can stay for a longer period if Twitter thinks so.
Twitter’s Plan for Change
This may become rough for some people who simply want to retweet. It’s important to understand that the feature will encourage you to put in your own thoughts. Not only this, it inspires to have a unique perspective and reactions.
In recent months, Twitter is testing out some immense changes in its platform. Its experiments have added friction to the platform. Even last month the company announced to roll out a test feature. This feature would guide users to click through a link before retweeting.
These changes are a major switch in the thinking for social platforms. Twitter also explained its policy on election outcomes. As per, a candidate for office “may not claim for election win before its authoritatively called”. Twitter will make sure of the authenticity of projected results. It will validate results from at least two-nation new sources.
Deceptive tweets will carry a misleading information label instead of getting removed. It will point users towards a trusted source for assessment of information. The company may remove tweets that might fuel violence.
Twitter’s New Restrictions
Next week twitter will also be implementing new restrictions. These might revolve around misleading information labels.
It will also take additional actions on the misleading tweets from the US. political figures. To view a tweet with a label the user has to tap through a warning. Likes, retweets, and replies will be disabled for such tweets.
These new initiatives will be applied to accounts with more than 100,000 followers. It will also include the tweets that go viral. “We expect this will reduce the visibility of misleading information. It will encourage users to reconsider if they want to amplify these tweets”. Twitter said these lines in one of its announcements.
It will also turn off recommendations in the timeline to slow down visibility. The company calls the decision “worthwhile”. It will stimulate a crystal clear amplification.
The company acknowledges that it plays a critical role in U.S. elections. It will monitor the platform and “respond rapidly”.It will continue to keep a check until authoritative results are out.
