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Twitter asks its users to fight misinformation on its service by reporting and rating deceptive and bogus tweets.
The pilot program unveiled on Monday, called Birdwatch, allows a pre-selected group of users – for now, only in the United States – to sign up via Twitter. Those wishing to sign up must have a US-based phone carrier, verified email address and phone number, and no recent violations of Twitter rules.
Twitter has said it wants pundits and non-experts to write notes on Birdwatch. He cited Wikipedia as a site that thrives on contributions from non-experts.
“In concept testing, we saw non-experts write concise, useful, and easy-to-understand notes, often citing valuable expert sources,” the company wrote in a blog post..
Twitter, along with other social media companies, is working to curb misinformation on its service. Despite tighter rules and enforcement, lies about the US presidential election and the coronavirus continue to spread.
But if the effort is to work, Twitter will have to anticipate abuse and bad actors who try to play the system to their advantage.
To help eliminate unnecessary or troll-created notes, for example, Twitter plans to attach a “utility score” to each one and tag those that are useful “currently deemed useful”.
The company said Birdwatch will not replace other tags and fact checks that Twitter currently uses – primarily for disinformation and misleading messages related to elections and COVID-19.
The program will start with 1000 users and eventually expand beyond the United States
Twitter, based in San Francisco, said it was trying to get Birdwatch to have a wide range of views and participants – an ongoing issue on Wikipedia, where many contributors and editors are white males.
“If we have more applicants than pilot niches, we will randomly admit accounts, prioritizing accounts that tend to follow and engage with audiences and content different from existing participants,” Twitter wrote.
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