Social media giant Twitter announced a new feature to its platform to combat the spread of misinformation.
The system, dubbed “Birdwatch,” allows users, who do not have to be certified fact-checkers or verified people on the website, to comment and provide context on tweets that they deem to be misleading or false. The system, which will begin as a stand-alone, is set to morph into a feature that is viewable by everyone on the platform.
“Birdwatch allows people to identify information in Tweets they believe is misleading or false, and write notes that provide informative context,” Twitter Vice President of Product Keith Coleman wrote. “We believe this approach has the potential to respond quickly when misleading information spreads, adding context that people trust and find valuable.”
Twitter did not immediately respond to the request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
“Birdwatch” will be available to users on a first-come, first-served basis, and users can rate and flag tweets they find to be in error in a fashion similar to webpages such as Reddit and Wikipedia.
In early May, top brass at Twitter announced the introduction of “misleading information,” “disputed claim,” and “unverified claim” tags to answer calls to combat misinformation on the platform during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. These tags, while used to address COVID-19 information, were later deployed en masse against former President Donald Trump and Republican allies for voter fraud claims following the November presidential election.
Twitter’s policing of its platform accelerated following the Jan. 6 riot that saw thousands of pro-Trump demonstrators clash with law enforcement and eventually breach the Capitol. A total of five people died following the violent event, including one police officer.
The social media company banned the president’s account indefinitely following the attack and purged the website of accounts linked to the right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon, according to Twitter. Right-wing figures have denounced Twitter for its actions and alleged bias from top executives.
Twitter went on to acknowledge that its “Birdwatch” system may be susceptible to “manipulation.”
“We know there are a number of challenges toward building a community-driven system like this — from making it resistant to manipulation attempts to ensuring it isn’t dominated by a simple majority or biased based on its distribution of contributors. We’ll be focused on these things throughout the pilot,” Coleman wrote. “We know this might be messy and have problems at times, but we believe this is a model worth trying.”
