Social media platforms aren’t just for sharing photos, these days it is also used to share news. However, the problem with sharing is that sometimes, people don’t do enough research before clicking the share button, which in turn could result in people sharing fake news which could misinform and also cause panic.We’ve seen how companies like Facebook have been trying to come up with ways to identify and label fake news, and it looks like Twitter might have a new idea. According to a report from NBC News, Twitter will be testing out a new method to label potentially fake news by highlighting them in orange.
This means that when users scroll through their Twitter feed and come across a post highlighted in orange, it will let them know that what they are reading could be potentially fake or inaccurate. The company has since confirmed that this is a feature that they are testing out. “We’re exploring a number of ways to address misinformation and provide more context for tweets on Twitter. Misinformation is a critical issue and we will be testing many different ways to address it.”
Twitter had previously drawn ire from the public when they defended their decision not to take down posts that might contain false information, claiming that they “are not the arbiters of truth’. However, it seems that with this test, Twitter seems to be having a change of heart.