(Reuters) – Twitter Inc said on Monday it had launched a pilot program that allows users to tweet what they believe is misleading, and take notes to provide context.
The project, called Birdwatch, is initially being offered in the United States, the social media firm said in a blog post here.
Twitter and other social media companies were under pressure to combat misinformation on their platforms. Last year, Twitter began adding labels and warnings about misinformation on the site, including about the COVID-19 pandemic and the U.S. election.
Birdwatch is on a separate section of Twitter twitter.com/i/birdwatch, and only launch participants, who apply for the program, will write posts that identify and refute incorrect information. Their notes will initially not be visible on Twitter to users outside the pilot group, but will be on the Birdwatch website.
Twitter said they will eventually have between 1,000 and 100,000 birdwatchers recorded on a running basis and who will not be paid.
“Ultimately, we aim to make notes visible directly on Tweets to the global Twitter audience, if there is consensus from a wide and diverse number of contributors,” Twitter vice president of product Keith Coleman said in the blog post.
Pilot participants can assess the helpfulness of notes from other contributors.
“We know that there are a number of challenges to setting up a community-driven system like this, from the fact that it resists manipulation attempts to the assurance that it is not dominated or biased by a simple majority, based on the distribution of contributors, ”Coleman said. the blog post.
“We believe this is a model worth trying,” he said.
Reported by Elizabeth Culliford in New York and Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru; Edited by Anil D’Silva and Cynthia Osterman