At least Twitter is trying to do the right thing when it comes to fighting misinformation.
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed Thursday following the social media company Announcement(opens in a new tab) New label for “Government and state-affiliated media accounts”. Twitter’s idea, which Representative Ocasio-Cortez praised as a well-intentioned effort, involves putting a prominent label on the two types of accounts.
Accounts of “key government officials, including foreign ministers, institutional entities, ambassadors, official spokespersons and prominent diplomatic leaders” will all receive the label, Twitter explained. as will “[accounts] state-affiliated media organizations, their editors-in-chief and/or their senior staff.”
A recent tweets(opens in a new tab) The Twitter support account demonstrated what these labels would look like. Two examples provided are “US government account” and “Russia state-affiliated media”.
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According to Representative Ocasio-Cortez, this is what responsible action in the social media space looks like.
“Stopping misinformation isn’t about sitting around debating ideas for years,” Congressman wrote(opens in a new tab), “It’s about testing strategies, trying ideas, etc. to find what’s effective.”
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“Whatever we try it’s not working,” He continued(opens in a new tab), “Is a ban on political ads the best approach? Probably not. But there is at least a willingness to recognize how dangerous misinformation is and to take action.”
See also: Facebook removes Trump post for spreading COVID-19 misinformation
As we approach the 2020 US presidential election, the willingness to fight misinformation – both political, and health-related, in the face of the coronavirus pandemic – is more important than ever. As far as Representative Ocasio-Cortez is concerned, today’s announcement from Twitter is a positive sign of things to come.
