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Twitter To Label Disputed COVID-19 Tweets (apnews.com) 86

Twitter announced Monday it will warn users when a tweet contains disputed or misleading information about the coronavirus. From a report: The new rule is the latest in a wave of stricter policies that tech companies are rolling out to confront an outbreak of virus-related misinformation on their sites. Twitter will take a case-by-case approach to how it decides which tweets are labeled and will only remove posts that are harmful, company leaders said Monday. Some tweets will run with a label underneath that directs users to a link with additional information about COVID-19. Other tweets might be covered entirely by a warning label alerting users that "some or all of the content shared in this tweet conflict with guidance from public health experts regarding COVID-19." The new labels will be available in roughly 40 languages and should begin appearing on tweets as soon as today. The warning could apply retroactively to past tweets.
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Twitter To Label Disputed COVID-19 Tweets

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  • ...that be labeled misleading as a cure?

  • Their taking away are freedoms of speach. Your not going to let them git away with that, are you?
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Texmaize ( 2823935 )

      Their taking away are freedoms of speach. Your not going to let them git away with that, are you?

      Stupid people make straw men arguments for more complicated issues, because they do not understand nuance

    • Nobody is making this argument. You're railing against a phantom that only exists in your misshapen head.
  • I used to think all those movies and books with stuff like the Ministry of Truth and firemen and people blindly accepting it was dumb and unrealistic especially with past history. Now I see stuff like this and I'm not so sure.
    • I was thinking about the firemen the other day though, while reflecting upon the clean-out of my late father-in-law's estate. Many books that nobody wanted, and I already have too many that I don't know what to do with. Over the next few decades I would think most of the physical books will eventually be disposed of, and that book will become entirely metaphorical.

    • I used to think all those movies and books with stuff like the Ministry of Truth and firemen and people blindly accepting it was dumb and unrealistic especially with past history. Now I see stuff like this and I'm not so sure.

      They all were extrapolating what they knew, to it's ridiculous conclusion.

      Well, we are now at that point. Some are much further gone than ohters, but the US is headed that way too.

      This here is pretty much the establishment of crimethought.

      https://www.congress.gov/bill/... [congress.gov]

    • they're not deleting the comments, they're just marking them as in dispute.

      For this to be an example of The Ministry of Truth they'd need to edit them before they posted (or after if you want to be particular).

      On the other hand if you want a real example of The Ministry of Truth there's this right here [arstechnica.com]
      • by Jarwulf ( 530523 )
        Except they are doing plenty of that too. The point isn't whether you think they're factually right in this particular instance or not. Its that we're establishing gatekeepers/Ministries of Truth/'authoritative sources' in the first place. And everybody is okay with this instead of recoiling in horror.
        • also, if we're gonna start getting pedantic, Twitter isn't the government. They're not gatekeepers to anything. Feel free to set up your own site with whatever you'd like. Odds are nobody'll listen or care, but then again odds are good nobody will listen or care about you on Twitter (or me on /. for that matter).

          If you want to be important the best way is to do something important. Me? I'm just screaming into the void really. Trying to blow off steam. I have no delusions about my importance
          • by Jarwulf ( 530523 )
            Its not the government its just a corporate monopoly on an important service. No big! Yeah you hippies would really go for that reasoning if it was you.
          • Except that they are the modern equivalent of the town square, and corporations used to own those, but still couldn't legally suppress your right to stand in it and speak. Anyway, every politician and public figure communicates with us through social media now. These private tech monopolies should not be allowed to stand between them and me in any capacity.
      • EVERYONE knows Twatter deletes comments that challenge the Official Narrative. This was standard operating procedure long before Corona panic.

        Go home, Nazi. No one is fooled by your bleating apologies for the worst tyranny since Hitler.

  • by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Monday May 11, 2020 @03:12PM (#60049316)

    Our own CDC has wavered and backtracked on advice over the course of this thing. Many doctors are now saying that putting people on ventilator might not be the best as it's almost certain death sentence for 80+ percent plus, oxygen and positioning are showing better outcome.

    • Twitter gave everyone an equal voice and it turns out that voice is cancer. Route twitter off the internet and society will be better off. It serves no purpose other than to tell people what topic they should be raging about today.

    • By the time people are put on a respirator they are already in severe respiratory distress (ie. severe pneumonia). People in that state are already on a pretty steep curve for not surviving. Leaving people off a respirator when they are in severe respiratory distress isn't exactly known for its efficacy either.

    • I've been saying since the start that they need to treat ventilators with he same scrutiny as hydroxychloroquine. I'm sure I'll be downvoted again, but ventilators in the US had a 12% survival rate. I don't think we know what the survival rate is without them, although I'm sure it's pretty bad.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They are just targeting the very worse, most dangerous advice like "inject bleach" or "have a COVID-19 party so you can get back to my factory."

      Advice that is genuinely the best effort of experts in the field, even if it ultimately turns out to be wrong, is the best thing we have. What is the alternative, listen to the snake oil salesman?

      • Are they going to target the Democrat New York City health commissioner, who in February told everyone to "not be racist" and attend the Chinese New Year parade? Or the Democrat New York city mayor who in late February told everyone to "not give in to Trump's xenophobia" and pack into theaters and public transportation? Tens of thousands of New York citizens died three weeks later.
      • The alternative is obviously for twitter to continue to let people tweet, and keep its ignorant opinion to itself.

    • Many doctors are now saying that putting people on ventilator might not be the best as it's almost certain death sentence for 80+ percent plus, oxygen and positioning are showing better outcome.

      My god why won't this falsehood finally die.

      Firstly: Oxygen is a standard first response for anyone admitted to hospital with falling SpO2 levels. There are few if any people who end up on ventilators who haven't also been given some form of O2 therapy. Chances are if you're struggling to breath you're probably on O2 before you even get to hospital.

      Secondly: The WHO's guidelines from back on the 28th of January specifically said that adults in respiratory distress should not be invasive ventilated.
      - Put on

      • I spoke of the U.S. CDC, why do you bring up irrelevant WHO?

        The standard treatment here for critical cases is ventilators, and 80% die.

  • Twitter won't do a damn thing to label sources who've given out "authoritative" misinformation.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
  • I imagine all the warning you get every time that Elon Musk tweets some of his usual bullshit.
  • Watch the morbidly obese Rambo cosplayers arm up and head to Twitter HQ.
  • Any efforts like this to "stop the spread of disinformation" present the 100% likelihood Twitter themselves will be spreading misinformation by marking an accurate thing as inaccurate...

    I hope Twitter enjoys mockery. Though honestly, with so many actions Twitter takes being mocked it seems like in fact they must crave it.

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Any efforts like this to "stop the spread of disinformation" present the 100% likelihood Twitter themselves will be spreading misinformation by marking an accurate thing as inaccurate...

      Not to mention the satire problem. The cartoon of the bleach enema, the social distancing from wild animals poster, anything from The Onion or The Borowitz Report, etc. are all, strictly speaking, disinformation, but if you Snopes them, everybody's going to call you a moron. :-)

  • I don't think that will go over well with the current US president.

  • by CQDX ( 2720013 ) on Monday May 11, 2020 @03:27PM (#60049360)

    You have medical doctors contradicting the conventional (and often contradictory) wisdom from the CDC and WHO. So some twit with a B.S. is going to say they are bunk and flag or ban them. Where is their scientific authority to say the doctor is wrong?

  • I'm sure that this won't be controversial, abused, or create any other types of problems. In my eyes, the main issue with these kinds of measures is that it really only takes one fuck up to severely diminish trust in it. Either someone with an axe to grind labels good advice or someone with no ill intention just gets it wrong. Never mind that all of the tinfoil hat crowd are just going to see it as further evidence of a grand conspiracy. The other problem is with misinformation that doesn't get labeled, pot
  • What information about Covid-19 isn't disputed?

  • disputes a tweet, twitter will label it propaganda nice!
  • IOW Twitter will label ANY post about Covid-19 as suspect since EVERY post about Covid-19 is controversial to someone.
  • ... when you could be burned alive for disagreeing with Orthodoxy.

  • Twitter announced Monday it will warn users when a tweet contains disputed or misleading information about the coronavirus

    Just like they promised they'd slap labels on leaders' tweets with misleading info/lies..... which is still yet to happen.

  • "The company has been removing bogus coronavirus cures and claims that social distancing or face masks do not curb the virus’ spread for several weeks. "

    It's fine that they remove bogus cures because those can pose a demonstrable risk for public health.

    It's NOT FINE that they censor claims that social distancing or face masks does not curb the virus' spread - because while distancing may have some effect, masks have no value for the general public unless you're sick and go around coughing and sneezing

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