Last year Twitter began testing the Birdwatch feature on a limited basis in the United States. Now they are starting to expand those trials to combat misinformation and misleading information.
Birdwatch is a new Twitter feature where users can provide additional context to a tweet that they believe is misleading or contains misinformation. Previously this feature was still in the pilot trial phase involving around 10,000 users, and additional notes provided by contributors could only be accessed on the Birdwatch page.
Now a small number of users in the US will be able to see Birdwatch notes directly below the tweet. Not only can you see Birdwatch notes directly below the tweet, Twitter users can also rate notes to provide additional feedback.
"We saw that the majority of people surveyed found Birdwatch notes useful," said Twitter Vice President of Product Keith Coleman in a virtual press briefing Tuesday (8/3/2022).
"Enjoyingly, people were 20 to 40% less likely to approve tweets with misleading content when they viewed Birdwatch notes versus people who didn't view the notes."
Before appearing under a tweet, Birdwatch notes should be rated as useful by several contributors from different perspectives. These differing perspectives are judged by how they judged past records, not demographics.
"For example, there are two people who previously rated something very differently and disagreed with each other, but they rated this note as useful. This is a good sign that the note will be useful for people with different points of view," Coleman said.
Twitter will also provide the option for Birdwatch contributors to contribute using an alias instead of their actual Twitter username. This is done so that contributors do not experience harassment or bullying if they provide notes on controversial topics.
The company with the bird logo also collaborates with well-known media outlets such as the Associated Press and Reuters to help its team assess the quality of information provided by contributors.
In addition, Twitter also collaborates with researchers from MIT, the University of Washington, and the University of Michigan School of Information who study misinformation, online manipulation, and harassment.
Currently the Birdwatch feature is only available in the United States and can only be accessed by a few users. Coleman did not reveal when Twitter would be bringing this feature more broadly to other countries and languages.
"We plan to bring Birdwatch to people around the world in all countries and all languages," said Coleman.
"It's a challenging product to build and that's why we started in one country. But once we've succeeded on a large scale, we really want to take it to more countries and more languages."