Twitter is expanding Birdwatch fact-checking to the US
Controversial subjects pervade all corners of the internet, and there’s often very little sound data to back up outlandish claims. This is because there are people who like to spread lies and misleading information to the masses, and sometimes, they actually have a loyal following. With the current situation going on between Russia and Ukraine, people really need to have sound data behind their claims. This is why Twitter is expanding its Birdwatch fact-checking pilot to the US. The company has been working on developing a way to fact-check tweets that relate to controversial subjects. When someone tweets about a controversial topic, they will receive a contextual note letting you know what’s really going on. This could really help people who are being fed lies. A controversial situation can be made exponentially worse by a stream of lies on social media. Consequently, lies on one of the biggest social media platforms can really cause some major problems.
How does this work?
Twitter has a growing base of volunteer fact-checkers to help spread credible information. This isn’t automated, which is actually a good thing. Additionally, the volunteers can attach notes to any tweet on controversial topics. The notes give additional contextual information on the subject so that people can at least know what’s going on. After that, the user can let Twitter know if that was useful. Volunteers vote on which sources they think are the most trustworthy, and those sources will see more usage.
This is still in the early stages
Unfortunately, Twitter’s Birdwatch fact-checking program is in the very early stages of development. Because of this, average users won’t see the notes on their tweets just yet. Only other volunteers can see the notes while providing feedback about the program. Twitter hasn’t told just we should see this feature hitting the platform. Hopefully, it’s soon because controversial topics are always trending on social media.
