Twitter Releases Redesigned Orange and Red ‘Misinformation’ Labels

Twitter is doubling down on letting you know when they think your internet behavior is uncouth. Reportedly the company has been testing new labels since July, and “are an update from those Twitter used for election misinformation before and after the 2020 presidential contest” reports the Associated Press.

The new designs include added orange and red labels to “stand out” more than the old blue version, which blended with Twitter’s blue color scheme. However, the company was also cautious, as “its tests showed that if a label is too eye-catching, it leads to more people to retweet and reply to the original tweet.”

The AP writes those labels used in the presidential election “drew criticism for not doing enough to keep people from spreading obvious falsehoods.” Therefore the redesign will launch on Tuesday in hopes of being “easier to notice.”

The AP states experts say such labels are helpful to users and allow the big tech social media giants to “sidestep the more difficult work of content moderation – that is, deciding whether or not to remove posts, photos and videos that spread conspiracies and falsehoods.”

In its testing phase, Twitter said the redesigned labels showed a 17% increase in “click-through-rate” meaning more people would click on the labels to read the information debunking false or misleading tweets. “Misleading tweets that got the redesigned label – with an orange icon and the words ‘stay informed’ were also less likely to be retweeted or liked than those with the original labels.”

Twitter labels three types of misinformation: “manipulated media,” such as videos and audio believed to have been deceptively altered in ways that could cause real-world harm; election and voting-related misinformation and false or misleading tweets related to COVID-19.

The AP adds “tweets with more serious misinformation – for instance, a tweet claiming that vaccines cause autism – will get a stronger label, with the world ‘misleading’ and a red exclamation point. It won’t be possible to reply to, like or retweet these messages.”