Twitter has announced a new policy for curbing misinformation during a period of crisis.

The platform will be blocking the promotion of tweets if they are seen to be spreading misinformation.

In a blog post detailing the new policy, Yoel Roth, Twitter's head of safety and integrity said: "Content moderation is more than just leaving up or taking down content."

"We’ve expanded the range of actions we may take to ensure they’re proportionate to the severity of the potential harm."

It's quite common for hoaxes and other misinformation to go viral during emergencies, as people rush to share information without taking the time to properly check its credibility.

The new policy states that tweets classified as misinformation will not necessarily be deleted or banned, instead, Twitter will add a warning label and users will need to click a button before the post is displayed. It will work similarly to how explicit images are hidden on the platform at present, and these posts will be blocked from promotion.

These more stringent rules will only apply to times of crisis, initially, Twitter will be applying the policy to Tweets about the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The policy comes at an uncertain time for the platform, which finds itself in a state of limbo with Elon Musk's, currently halted, purchase of the company.