Twitter is stepping up its efforts to combat Russian misinformation regarding the state’s invasion of Ukraine in a remarkably nuanced way.
On Monday, Twitter’s head of site integrity, Yoel Roth, the platform will begin labeling links to state-affiliated news sites such as Russia Today (RT) or TASS to indicate that affiliation. The next time someone tweets a link to a story from RT or TASS, for example, a warning box will appear above it with an orange exclamation point and text that says: “Stay informed: this tweet links to a Russia state-affiliated media website.”
This is important context to make plain because Russian President Vladimir Putin has attempted to justify his invasion of Ukraine through misinformation and propaganda.
https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/1498343849273425921
Twitter, Roth points out in his Twitter thread, has labeled accounts of news organizations that serve as mouthpieces for the Russian government since 2020. The approach is similar to that of other media outlets. Also, Facebook and Instagram label these outlets and their posts as “state-controlled media,” although Meta-owned WhatsApp does not seem to have a similar policy (Mashable has reached out for clarification). YouTube labels videos from these sorts of outlets, although a ProPublica investigation found that its labeling often misses content.
However, Twitter’s new label is attached to tweets from anyone who shares a link to the website – not just the outlets themselves. Roth says Twitter decided this was necessary because it tracked “over 45,000 tweets a day sharing links to Russian state-affiliated media outlets,” and concluded that “tweets sharing their content lacked context.”
Twitter will begin the labeling links initiative with Russian state-affiliated media, but says it will roll out the labels for other countries in the “coming weeks.” Already, TASS — which had its website hacked with anti-war messaging Monday — has covered the move with the headline “Russian Foreign Ministry urges Twitter to label Western media outlets as state-affiliated.” Never mind that the U.S. does not have state-affiliated media outlets. But ok, TASS.