Twitter to label posts containing misleading coronavirus info

Twitter will begin placing labels on posts containing misleading information about the coronavirus pandemic, the company announced Monday.

Labels, like the ones the company began applying to manipulated media earlier this year, will appear on tweets with “potentially harmful, misleading information” related to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The label will include a link to a page curated by Twitter or a vetted outside source with information about the claims made in the initial post.

Posts may be removed if they contain information that could be particularly harmful, the company said.

Conspiracy theories and unfounded claims about the virus, its origins and ways to combat it have surged on social media in step with the disease itself, causing what the World Health Organization has branded an “infodemic.”

Twitter in March expanded its coronavirus misinformation policy to require users to take down posts that deny expert recommendations, promote fake treatments and prevention techniques, or misleadingly claim to be from authorities.