Twitter remains committed to “fighting misinformation” through censorship, but with a slightly wider sleeve than they had before: messages will no longer be deleted and users whom the platform considers to be what they call misinformation will be excluded. With the new policy, its echoes will simply be reduced, and those who come across such “misinformation” will be made aware of its nature.

As expected in twitter blogThe company has been working for more than a year on a new crisis disinformation policy to “strengthen credible and authoritative information” as well as “ensure that viral disinformation is not reinforced or recommended.” This new policy will begin to unfold around armed conflicts, such as what is happening in Ukraine, and will be extended to other types of crises, such as the health crisis that India is experiencing due to the covid-19 pandemic.

The intention of Twitter is basically apply disinformation policy in any crisis – armed conflicts, public health emergencies and large-scale natural disasters – in which there is “a major threat to life, physical security, health or basic livelihoods,” they explain. “This definition is in line with the UN definition of a humanitarian crisis,” they add. Thus, “world experts and human rights organizations” will be responsible for determining what is or is not misinformation.

Nothing new under the sun, Twitter, except that messages are not deleted and users are not expelled, as is the case in other areas of the social network, where a mere coordinated complaint between hostile groups can quickly put an account of any wayward user. As with pandemic health information, the first thing to do will be to report potentially harmful content with a message.

Which translates as “this tweet violated Twitter’s rules on the dissemination of false or misleading information that could harm the population affected by the crisis.” However, in order to keep this content accountable, Twitter has decided that this tweet must remain available. “

Some of the examples offered by Twitter about reports violating disinformation policy in the crisis seem to fit into the conflict unleashed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine like a glove:

• False coverage or incident reports or information that incorrectly characterizes the conditions at the site of the conflict;
• False claims about the use of force, invasions of territorial sovereignty or the use of weapons;
• demonstrably false or misleading allegations of war crimes or mass atrocities against specific populations;
• False information about the international community’s response, sanctions, defensive actions or humanitarian operations.

The funny thing is, not all those red lines are nothing new: they derive the apparent censorship they have suffered from the media, such as Russia Today (RT), whose Twitter accounts have long been blocked (but in the case of RT, censorship has been generalized and most EU countries have banned them). RT is, of course, a medium associated with the Russian regime and prone to information bias, but this is a common characteristic of the entire international media apparatus.

Be that as it may, nothing will change much. Twitter has spent years delegating content censorship to experts of its choice at the expense of others and will continue to do so, now following more orderly guidelines but equally prone to arbitrariness. At least until Elon Musk prevents it … if you can do something like that. So far, it’s all such a fuss for nothing.