Trump's Flagged Tweets Were Spreading Freely on Other Platforms

Wong, Q. (2021, August 25). Trump's tweets blocked for election misinformation still spread to other sites. CNET. https://www.cnet.com/news/trumps-tweets-blocked-for-election-misinformation-still-spread-to-other-sites/

According to this article, tweets sent by Donald Trump that were labeled for election misinformation are still spreading to other sites. Some researchers found that the same messages showed on other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Redditt. NYU researchers state that tweets that were flagged by Twitter for misinformation between November of 2021 and January 8th 2021 were sent to other platforms and although Twitter managed to curb further spread of the tweets, the same messages were spreading on other social media without limitations. The author notes that Tweets labeled by Twitter receive more user engagement than those without warning. The NYU research findings highlight the limitations of limiting content when moderation is not consistent on all social media platforms. There is a challenge for content moderation because each platform has its own set of policies which are chosen and enforced by individual platforms independently without consulting with the other ones. A twitter spokesperson stated that it was critical for the platform to take action against misleading content that could contribute to offline harm. The spokesperson added that Twitter will continue to research, question, any features that are likely to negatively affect the health of the conversation online. The author notes that just between November 2020 to January 2021 Twitter labeled 303 tweets by Trump and restricted engagement on 16 tweets.

‍