By Twitter Ramping Up Promotion of Experimental Vaccines with New ‘Fact Box’
(The Verge) – Twitter is adding a new prompt to users’ timelines to help promote the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination effort, providing users around the world with the “latest vaccine info” in their particular country.
The new notice appears as a massive unmissable box at the top of users’ Twitter feeds on the iOS and Android apps, prompting users to “make sure you have the most up-to-date information on the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations.” (The prompt is so large that on my iPhone 12 Pro, it obscured all but a single tweet when I opened the app.)
Image: The Verge
Tapping that link takes you to a new Twitter event page with information about the vaccines, shown as a series of collected tweets from organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least in the US. The guide is broken up into several sections, into details on vaccine efficacy, potential side effects, advice for pregnant people, and more.
As COVID-19 vaccinations become more widely available, we want you to have access to the latest vaccine info in your country.
This week you’ll see a prompt in your timeline that links to sources about vaccine safety, efficacy, and news from public health experts.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) April 26, 2021
It’s the latest effort by a major tech company to help promote the COVID-19 vaccines and provide useful and accurate information to users. Facebook has recently added state-by-state vaccination information to its News Feed for US users, for example, while YouTube is running an ad campaign of PSAs to encourage people to get their shots.
