Washington’s probe leads to new Twitter feature

On Tuesday, Twitter announced plans to seek users’ judiciousness to further implement control over misinformation by launching a test of its latest feature that will allow users to report misleading posts.

Following Washington’s pressure to go the extra mile to force the platform to contain possible misinformation, users will be reporting dishonest information through the dropdown menu at the top right of every tweet.

The platform’s newest feature will be exclusively accessible to U.S., Australian, and South Korean residents, where users will be able to categorize the information under three main classifications: health-related, political, and other categories.

Any health-related post will be reported under COVID-19 misinformation and political-related posts under content related to elections.

“We’re testing a feature for you to report Tweets that seem misleading – as you see them,” Twitter’s safety team said in a statement. “Starting today, some people in the U.S., South Korea, and Australia will find the option to flag a Tweet as ‘It’s misleading’ after clicking on Report Tweet,” the team added.

As per Twitter’s process of handling future post flags, the social media giant said that not every single report will be taken into consideration since it is still assessing the feature.

However, the data collected during the testing phase will further give the company a conceptualization concerning how Twitter’s developers can enhance the feature in the upcoming weeks.

In July, President Joe Biden impaled the country’s most famous social networking firms – such as Facebook – by implying that they are “killing people” by spreading misinformation concerning COVID-19 vaccines.

The White House’s campaign pressured platforms to extract any COVID misinformation from its platform and reduce the spread of deceptive information.

Jen Psaki, the White House’s Press Secretary, condemned Facebook for not taking the right measures to prevent vaccine misinformation.

“They’re a private-sector company. They’re going to make decisions about additional steps they can take. It’s clear there are more that can be taken,” she addressed the issue in a press briefing.

As for the social networking titan, Facebook did not refrain from criticizing the President’s statement on the matter by implying they are not sustained by facts.

“We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts,” Facebook said in a statement. “The fact is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period,” the statement elaborated.

In the fight of who strives to provide the public with the most accurate health and political data, it appears that on the surface, social networking giants and Washington will not cease fire until one party succumbs to the other party’s demands.

As for who will take the lead, only time will tell as each platform executes its scheme to prevent further misinformation, while following Washington’s ever-increasing regulations.