Twitter Has Birdwatch Feature To Monitor Misinformation Content

Ilustrasi (Image Credit: Stocksnap / Pixabay)

JAKARTA - In fighting hoaxes or misleading information, Twitter has developed a new feature called Birdwatch. This feature will make it easier for Twitter to check facts from content and tweets that contain misinformation.

Quoting The Verge, Monday, October 5, this feature is explained to be able to make the Twitter community warn each other about misleading tweets that can cause misunderstanding, or uproar in the social media network.

The leak of the feature was first revealed by Twitter user Jane Manchun Wong, who frequently digs into the application code to look for evidence of a feature that hasn't been released in August. Jane found that the basis of this feature was that users could attach further explanatory notes to misleading tweets.

Twitter is working on a moderation tool to monitor misinformations on Twitter Moderators can flag tweets, vote on whether it is misleading, and add a note about it (I made up my own note to show what it currently looks like) pic.twitter.com/ YIa6zt58Fj

- Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 5, 2020

But this week, an interface very similar to the one Jane found was rediscovered in Twitter's code, this time on iOS by social media consultant Matt Navarra. He tweeted a few more screenshots of the feature on the phone.

Navarra's findings show that Birdwatch allows users to attach notes to tweets to provide a fact. These notes can be seen when clicking the binocular button in the tweet itself. In other words, additional context about the statements made in the tweet will be open to the public.

Then starting last October 3, Twitter has conducted a survey on the Birdwatch feature. Where, users can report a content, with the option to take one of the actions such as content that is misleading or not misleading in a debate about a particular piece of information.

Not only that, users can also trace how much loss the tweet might cause.

New Twitter feature? 'Birdwatch' ?! 🐦 Any guesses what it does? pic.twitter.com/1vmpZdTKLi

- Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) September 30, 2020

Seeing a lot of conversation from users, Twitter product leader Kayvon Beykpour said that his company is now working on this feature to be perfect, and he will also share more knowledge about Birdwatch.

However, it is not known exactly who will confirm the correctness of the posted tweet, mainly because it is unclear whether the moderator or Twitter's algorithm will judge whether the tweet is misleading or not.

Additionally, whether every user on Twitter will be given access to annotated tweets with additional context, or whether using the feature will require approval, or will only be open to certain users.