Twitter said it is expanding access to Birdwatch, its community-based fact-checking initiative first unveiled in October 2020. The service has so far been tested by a small group of 10,000 contributors, who have invested time to write and evaluate notes to add more context to potentially misleading tweets. The company, however, isn’t opening up Birdwatch to more contributors, but rather making those notes viewable and appreciated by more US users.
Starting today, the company said A “small and random group” of US Twitter users will see Birdwatch notes directly on the tweet and will be able to provide input by rating the note as “Useful,” “Somewhat,” or ” No” and tell you why they answered it the way they did. These signals will help Birdwatch improve.
The original idea behind Birdwatch was to create a system to combat disinformation on the platform at a much faster rate than is possible today by reporting tweets to Twitter for review.
As Twitter explained when the service officially launched in pilot testing in January 2021, misleading information can spread quickly online, and Birdwatch notes can provide additional context in a more immediate way. Plus, annotations can help address concerns with problematic tweets that users would otherwise report to Twitter for removal, but don’t actually break the rules. And they can enhance tweets that are probably factually true but lack context that might provide a clearer picture of the issue.
Image credits: I tweet
The timing of Twitter’s announcement comes just days after a report from The Washington Post criticized the company for failing to launch its Birdwatch service more publicly more than a year after it first debuted.
In the time since the pilot began, Twitter has been filled with all kinds of other projects designed to increase revenue, including a set of creative tools (Super Follows), e-commerce features, a subscription product for power users (Twitter Blue), newsletters (Revue), NFT avatars, in-app outreach, live audio (Twitter Spaces) and more.
But as the Russia-Ukraine war rages, better (or at least faster) fact-checking is more in demand than ever due to the spread of misinformation and propaganda across social media. In a comment to The Washington Post, Twitter said it would expand the Birdwatch pilot “very soon.” In other words, the timing of today’s announcement is no coincidence.
During the earlier pilot stages, Twitter made improvements to Birdwatch, including the provision of contributors automatically generated nicknames to keep them protected from abuse and notifications letting them know when their notes have been rated as helpful or upvoted. To appear in a tweet, notes must first be evaluated by enough Birdwatch contributors from different perspectives, the company said. Twitter also added quick in-app reminders to encourage contributors to include their sources and make their explanations clear, and introduced a “Needs Your Help” tab for Birdwatch participants to rate notes they need more of. many reactions.
Image credits: I tweet
Last summer, Twitter announced it would work with the AP and Reuters to help it fight misinformation on its platform, which also included helping to evaluate Birdwatch’s contributions.
In one survey, Twitter found that people were 20% to 40% less likely to agree with the substance of a potentially misleading tweet after seeing a note about it, compared to those who didn’t see the note.
Although Birdwatch notes may become visible to a small number of users starting today, it’s far from a public launch. The program is still considered a “pilot”.
It also continues to be questioned whether community fact-checking is even the right approach to dealing with disinformation, given that Birdwatch contributors are not necessarily trained fact-checkers, journalists or subject matter experts of any kind. (Plus, even those who They are (Subject matter experts in one field can’t necessarily be relied upon to properly assess disinformation in another.) Instead, the requirements say they simply need to have a verified phone number, a trusted U.S.-based phone carrier and no recent Twitter violations.
Then there’s the question of how critical some fact-checking is compared to others, and whether closed notes are the right way to get the truth out. For example, while it is good to know that the person identified as Mark Hamill in a GIF posted by a meme account is probably just a talented player, it’s quite another when a former Prime Minister and verified diplomat of Sweden tweets a spoof photo from the Ukraine-Russia war.
Twitter declined to say how many US users will now see Birdwatch’s notes and be able to rate them, or even what percentage of Twitter’s US user base it represents.
