Twitter makes Birdwatch, its crowd-sourced fact checks, much more important
Twitter is expanding its experimental fact-checking program, Birdwatch, and making its debunking of misinformation much more visible. With the expansion, about half of Twitter users in the US will start seeing Birdwatch debunks added to misleading tweets.
The initiative, which started over a year ago, takes a crowd-sourced approach to debunking misinformation on Twitter. Community moderators who are part of the program can add ratings to misleading tweets to "provide informative context" rather than a binary true/false rating like other fact-checking sites. Other contributors can then rate whether a rating is "helpful" or not.
Now Twitter is adding more people to the ranks of Birdwatch contributors (there are currently around 15,000) and introducing a new system for rating contributors. Those who join the program will now need to earn the ability to add ratings by first reviewing the ratings of other contributors. Once their contributor score reaches a "5", they can then start writing their own notes. But if those notes are repeatedly deemed "unnecessary" by other contributors, they might lose their note-writing privileges.
The rating system appears to be designed to help ensure that Birdwatch contributors don't go rogue and start adding their own misinformation to Twitter. Notably, documents released by Twitter's former security chief turned whistleblower showed the company mistakenly allowed an "overt QAnon account" into Birdwatch and only caught him the day before the launch. program.
Birdwatch's latest expansion also means that fact checks will be much more important than in the past. When the program first launched, they were only visible on a separate website. This started to change earlier this year, with Twitter adding fact checks directly to tweets, but it was still only visible to a small number of people. Now Birdwatch has expanded to millions more users. Twitter says about half of its US users will be able to see fact checks powered by Birdwatch, though it cautions that users shouldn't expect to see them on "every tweet".
The company says early research suggests fact checks have a positive impact. According to Twitter, "People who see a Birdwatch rating are, on average, 20-40% less likely to agree with the substance of a potentially misleading Tweet than someone who only sees the Tweet." And people are "15-35% less likely" to retweet or like a tweet with a Birdwatch rating, the company says, adding that the percentage is an "estimate" based on "internal data".
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Twitter is expanding its experimental fact-checking program, Birdwatch, and making its debunking of misinformation much more visible. With the expansion, about half of Twitter users in the US will start seeing Birdwatch debunks added to misleading tweets.
The initiative, which started over a year ago, takes a crowd-sourced approach to debunking misinformation on Twitter. Community moderators who are part of the program can add ratings to misleading tweets to "provide informative context" rather than a binary true/false rating like other fact-checking sites. Other contributors can then rate whether a rating is "helpful" or not.
Now Twitter is adding more people to the ranks of Birdwatch contributors (there are currently around 15,000) and introducing a new system for rating contributors. Those who join the program will now need to earn the ability to add ratings by first reviewing the ratings of other contributors. Once their contributor score reaches a "5", they can then start writing their own notes. But if those notes are repeatedly deemed "unnecessary" by other contributors, they might lose their note-writing privileges.
The rating system appears to be designed to help ensure that Birdwatch contributors don't go rogue and start adding their own misinformation to Twitter. Notably, documents released by Twitter's former security chief turned whistleblower showed the company mistakenly allowed an "overt QAnon account" into Birdwatch and only caught him the day before the launch. program.
Birdwatch's latest expansion also means that fact checks will be much more important than in the past. When the program first launched, they were only visible on a separate website. This started to change earlier this year, with Twitter adding fact checks directly to tweets, but it was still only visible to a small number of people. Now Birdwatch has expanded to millions more users. Twitter says about half of its US users will be able to see fact checks powered by Birdwatch, though it cautions that users shouldn't expect to see them on "every tweet".
The company says early research suggests fact checks have a positive impact. According to Twitter, "People who see a Birdwatch rating are, on average, 20-40% less likely to agree with the substance of a potentially misleading Tweet than someone who only sees the Tweet." And people are "15-35% less likely" to retweet or like a tweet with a Birdwatch rating, the company says, adding that the percentage is an "estimate" based on "internal data".
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices correct at time of publication.
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