Twitter announced Tuesday that the company will begin to label and in some cases remove doctored or manipulated photos, audio and videos that they say are designed to mislead people, The Daily Caller reports.
We know that some Tweets include manipulated photos or videos that can cause people harm. Today we’re introducing a new rule and a label that will address this and give people more context around these Tweets pic.twitter.com/P1ThCsirZ4
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) February 4, 2020
Starting in March, the company said, it will add labels or take down tweets carrying “Manipulated media” and videos. The labels can be expanded to show more information from “reputable sources” and will try to explain how the video was altered. This will apply to GIFs and memes that contain doctored content.
“We’re making Twitter a safer place for conversations,” the video read.
“You may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm,” Twitter Safety wrote in another tweet. “In addition, we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide context.”
Social media platforms have previously been under fire for not removing doctored content. Last year, an altered video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi that made it appear that she was intoxicated and slurring her words spread across Facebook. Many in the public eye expressed their concern and outrage over the video not being removed, one tweet reading “If youtube can take down fake videos, Facebook can take down fake videos.”
“A critical part of this change was developing this with input from the public, civil society groups, and academic experts,” Twitter Safety wrote. “We received 6,500+ responses on our approach, and will continue to make changes like this openly and in consultation with people around the world.”