iStock/hocus-focus(NEW YORK) — Images of tweets flagged by Twitter as “Harmfully Misleading” were leaked to NBC News and are making rounds on social media.
Twitter confirmed that the images are part of the social media company’s experiment with ways to tackle misinformation on its platform.
“This is a design mock-up for one option that would involve community feedback,” a Twitter spokesperson told ABC News. “Misinformation is a critical issue, and we will be testing many different ways to address it.”
Based on the images, the feature would append a bright orange label including the words “Harmfully Misleading” if the tweet is flagged as containing mis- or disinformation.
Here’s what it might look like when a politician tweets “harmfully misleading” content after March 5th. Big red/orange flag underneath the offending tweet.
These are screenshots from that were left on a public testing site. Twitter confirmed they’re possible iterations. pic.twitter.com/EH61YDGjOg
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) February 20, 2020
The images are only early-stage mock-ups and not a feature currently being tested within Twitter, a source at Twitter told ABC News.
Robert Mueller’s report on Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election showed social media was a prominent way for trolls and bots to influence the electorate.
On March 5, Twitter said the company is planning a series of updates to its platform to target misinformation. These include applying a label to tweets that have been “have been significantly and deceptively altered or fabricated,” showing a warning to people before they retweet or like the tweet, and reducing the tweet’s visibility, according to a Twitter blog post.
The leaked mock-up images are not a part of that March update, according to a Twitter source.
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