Research on the effects of Twitter's soft moderation and warning labels on COVID-19 vaccine beliefs has several limitations and avenues for further study. Future research should use a larger sample size, analyzing more than just two tweets containing misinformation and warning tags or covers. Additionally, studies should focus on tracking long-term changes in user perceptions as new scientific discoveries and progress regarding the vaccine emerge.

Misinformation Warning Labels: Twitter's Soft Moderation Effects on COVID-19 Vaccine Belief Echoes Limitations and Further Research

- Participants who were more likely to accept the misinformation in tweets were generally the ones who were against the vaccine and disregarded soft moderation warnings
- Warning tags not influential in changing users’ pre-existing notions regarding the vaccine
- Warning tags and covers may even prompt users to believe more strongly that the information is accurate or inaccurate depending on their stance on the vaccine

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- Twitter’s internal systems and teams started monitoring COVID-19 related tweets containing misinformation in 2020
- Originally started out targeting COVID-19 tweets but expanded to election fraud
- Previous studies have concluded that the warnings backfire and cause more commotion due to mockery and users do not always agree with the labels
- Soft moderation prevents tweets from being removed completely while still giving users a heads up about the misleading content of the tweet 

Misinformation Warning Labels: Twitter's Soft Moderation Effects on COVID-19 Vaccine Belief Echoes Background

Sharevski, F., Alsaadi, R., Jachim, P., & Pieroni, E. (2021). Misinformation Warning Labels: Twitter's Soft Moderation Effects on COVID-19 Vaccine Belief Echoes. arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.00779. https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.00779

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