Twitter will let users report misinformation for first time

Twitter Inc. is adding an option for users to report misinformation to the company, but says the expanded ability to flag tweets won’t necessarily lead to more fact-checking or labels on problematic posts. 

The test, only available in a few markets, will let users notify the company about alleged misinformation in the same way they can alert Twitter to spam or abuse. But the social media company, which doesn’t have a robust fact-checking operation, won’t review the legitimacy of each identified tweet or respond to users with updates as it does with other types of reports. Instead, Twitter will use the reports as a way to study misinformation on the platform and identify trends or problem areas to focus on, a spokeswoman said. Twitter only fact-checks tweets from select categories, like elections and Covid-19, but users can alert the company to any misinformation. Twitter may add more categories to the fact-checking operation based on the results of the test, which will run in the U.S., Australia and South Korea.