Twitter Launches Birdwatch, A New Feature To Deal With Misinformation

Twitter Inc TWTR launched Birdwatch, a new initiative to flag misleading tweets.

What Happened: Birdwatch is a pilot program that allows users to identify information in tweets they believe is misleading and write notes providing informative context, the company said in a blog post. The social media platform will eventually make these notes more visible on tweets for its global audience.

While it remains in a testing phase, the notes will only be visible on a separate Birdwatch site.

"We believe this approach has the potential to respond quickly when misleading information spreads, adding context that people trust and find valuable," Twitter said.

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Why It's Important: Twitter's initiative follows interviews with more than 100 individuals "across the political spectrum," the company said. There was "broad general support" for Birdwatch that helps evaluate the trustworthiness of a tweet.

"We know this might be messy and have problems at times, but we believe this is a model worth trying," Twitter said.

What's Next: Twitter will focus on how to prevent manipulative practices in its initiative and ensure it isn't dominated by a simple majority.

(Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash)