Twitter Truth Seekers to Label 'Misleading' Posts

Twitter is asking volunteers to add notes explaining why posts are misleading. It calls it a "community-driven approach to help address misleading information on Twitter."

The company appears to believe that using volunteers will make it easier to address quickly-spreading misinformation rather than rely on paid staff.

It says the project, dubbed Birdwatch, won't involve labeling posts as "true" or "false". It also won't involving hiding or removing any posts as already happens after staff review reports of users breaching the site's guidelines.

Volunteers Will Reach Consensus

Birdwatch will initially exist as a separate site for testing purposes. Volunteers in the pilot program will be able to add notes to Twitter posts to give context and explain how they may be misleading. There will also be a system for other participants to rate how helpful the notes are. (Source: theguardian.com)

According to Twitter, the aim of the pilot is to develop algorithms that can quickly identify which notes are most useful and should be published besides the relevant posts. This will only happen when "there is consensus from a broad and diverse set of contributors." (Source: twitter.com)

One risk could be that the type of people who agree to spend their free time writing such notes might not be representative of a wide range of viewpoints and political leanings. To counter this, data files containing all submitted notes (whether "published" or not) will be available to download.

Original Posts Won't Be Downplayed

Twitter says that even where the Birdwatch notes appear, they system won't affect the prominence it gives to the original posts when deciding what to show users who have their account to show "Top Tweets," rather than everything in chronological order. It hasn't said whether users will be able to opt out of seeing the notes.

Giving more power to users may be a way for Twitter to sidestep criticism about how its own staff decide what content should and shouldn't be removed or highlighted as misleading. The company's recent decision to permanently suspend Donald Trump's account prompted debate not just about the merits of that decision but the societal impact of a private company exercising its right to decide who can and can't publish content on its site.

What's Your Opinion?

Does Birdwatch this sound like a useful system? Is it sensible to emphasize "explanatory notes" rather than simply removing or labeling false information? Do you believe that Twitter simply trying to avoid responsibility for its own "editorial" decisions?