Twitter enabled a new program on Thursday as a new way for the platform to address what it calls "misleading information" in tweets by allowing certain users to apply reviews.
In a series of tweets, the company said the program would be “informative” and “helpful” even to people “who often disagree.”
“Context on Tweets — by the people, for the people — is coming to everyone in the US,” Twitter claimed. “It’s open, transparent, and we’ve consistently seen notes be found helpful and informative even by people who often disagree.”
The feature will allow users to leave “notes” on tweets they disagree with for other users to see, essentially creating a fact-checking program with a creepy name. Tweets with a number of negative “notes” will be hidden from other users.
The problem? According to Facebook, users fail to click through fact-check interstitials 95 percent of the time, AP News reported.
Birdwatch has faced criticism from free speech advocates since it was announced in 2021, and concern rises that the program will be abused by users seeking to label content they disagree with as “misinformation.”
Last year, NewsBusters reported the claims of Keith Coleman, the company’s Vice President of Product, that Birdwatch would be “a pilot in the US of a new community-driven approach to help address misleading information on Twitter.”
“Birdwatch allows people to identify information in Tweets they believe is misleading and write notes that provide informative context. We believe this approach has the potential to respond quickly when misleading information spreads, adding context that people trust and find valuable,” Coleman wrote in a blog post. “Eventually we aim to make notes visible directly on Tweets for the global Twitter audience, when there is consensus from a broad and diverse set of contributors.”
In a blog post, however, Twitter claimed that authors who “disagree” with a Birdwatch note left on a tweet can “request additional review.”
“As a Tweet author, if you disagree that a Birdwatch note provides important context about your Tweet, you can request additional review,” the company said.
Still, the blog all but says that appeals will be futile.
“All ratings are done by Birdwatch contributors, who voluntarily review notes, so there’s no guarantee that more contributors will review it or that the note’s rating will change,” Twitter added in another blog post.
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