Twitter Launching Birdwatch For Posted Content Fact Checking, This Is How It Works

Twitter launched Birdwatch for content moderation. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - Twitter Inc will expand its community fact-checking project called Birdwatch. This was revealed by the social media company on Wednesday, September 7. They also want to deepen their new approach to a new form of content moderation.

Birdwatch launched last year, which allowed some Twitter users to remove misleading tweet prejudices by attaching notes to content to provide context or point to accurate sources.

Social media platforms including Twitter have long faced competitional pressures on how to moderate content that appears in their services. Critics accuse companies of making too little effort to remove malicious posts. Others argue that platforms should protect free speech.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who attempted to leave a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, said the company should remove less posts and act as a public town hall for free speech.

Tweets with Birdwatch records left on its algorithmic service and distribution to other users are unaffected.

"We just think it's a very strong place to get started, because it only arms people with information and lets them make their own decisions," Keith flow, vice president of Twitter products, said during a briefing with reporters, including Reuters.

While Twitter has policies that prohibit content such as hate speech or calls for violence, Birdwatch allows the Twitter community to handle tweets in "grey areas."

To date, Birdwatch is a limited experiment with 15,000 contributors writing fact checking notes. Twitter says it will now add around 1,000 new contributors per week.

The Birdwatch records are being held on separate websites, but half of users in the United States will start looking at records on their Twitter timeline, the company said.

According to Twitter, the Project has yielded encouraging results. As many as 15% to 35% are less likely to "wave" or retweet content that has Birdwatch records attached to it. They are also 20% to 40% less likely to agree with potentially misleading tweets after reading Birdwatch records about it.