Twitter to Ban Fake, Manipulated Media

By Adedapo Adesanya 

Top micro-blogging and social media platform, Twitter, has announced that it will be making a move to stop deceptive photos and videos being posted to the platform.

An official statement from the company disclosed that users will no longer be able to share manipulated media that is likely to hurt other users. Also, doctored posts will be accompanied by a label indicating the validity of the content.

It was also revealed that tweets that are deemed deceptive will be labelled “manipulated media” starting from Thursday, March 5, 2020, the company stated in the release.

“You may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm.

“In addition, we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand the media’s authenticity and to provide additional context,” the statement read.

Twitter, in order to determine whether a post could potentially cause harm, says it will compare the content against these criteria:

“Are the media synthetic or manipulated?; Are the media shared in a deceptive manner?; Is the content likely to impact public safety or cause serious harm?

“Our goal in making these assessments is to understand whether someone on Twitter who is just scrolling through their timeline has enough information to understand whether the media being shared in a tweet is or isn’t what it claims to be.”

Users will be able to then tap on the label which will then lead them to reputable sources containing undoctored information.

Twitter says this will be the first time and it can’t be sure of a positive outcome in separating facts from manipulated content but stated that it was the appropriate thing.

“This will be a challenge and we will make errors along the way — we appreciate the patience. However, we’re committed to doing this right.

“Updating our rules in public and with democratic participation will continue to be core to our approach,” Twitter said.

Fake news spread much faster than real news, and people are likely to spread them 10 times faster than legitimate news stories. Governments have been urging social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to clamp down on them.