Twitter tests placing bright labels to indicate lies by public figures

Twitter Inc said on Thursday that it was testing adding brightly coloured labels underneath tweets posted by politicians and public figures that contain lies and misinformation.

The company told Reuters that the leaked demo is one possible iteration of a new approach to combat misinformation. NBC News earlier reported that Twitter company documents showing a mockup were accessible on a publicly available site, although it did not identify the site.

"We're exploring a number of ways to address misinformation and provide more context for Tweets on Twitter," Twitter said in a statement.

"This is a design mockup for one option that would involve community feedback. Misinformation is a critical issue and we will be testing many different ways to address it."

In November, Twitter banned political ads amid growing pressure on social media companies to stop accepting commercials containing misleading or false information.

Twitter said earlier this month that it would apply "false" warning labels to tweets containing synthetic or deceptively edited forms of media and remove such media if it is likely to cause harm.