Twitter started flagging tweets for disputed and potentially misleading content this year ahead of the 2020 Presidential Elections. With the feature in place, the website will show you a warning every time you try to retweet or quote a post that’s been labeled as such in an effort to curb the spread of misinformation. Now, the social network has expanded the feature so that you’ll also get a warning if you attempt to “like” a disputed tweet. Tapping the heart button on a post that’s been labeled as misleading will trigger a prompt with a “Find out more” button to pop up.
Giving context on why a labeled Tweet is misleading under our election, COVID-19, and synthetic and manipulated media rules is vital.
These prompts helped decrease Quote Tweets of misleading information by 29% so we’re expanding them to show when you tap to like a labeled Tweet. pic.twitter.com/WTK164nMfZ
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 23, 2020
App experimental feature researcher Jane Manchun Wong discovered the expanded function earlier this month. The tweets she tested, which were related to the elections, showed a warning that says “Official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted.”