Twitter is hiring its users to help combat the misinformation of its service by marking and noticing misleading and fake tweets.
The pilot program unveiled on Monday, called Birdwatch, allows a shortlist of users – for now, only in the US – to register via Twitter. Those wishing to sign up must have a U.S.-based telephone operator, a verified phone number and email, and not have violated Twitter rules.
Twitter said it wants experts and non-experts to write Birdwatch notes. He cited Wikipedia as a thriving site with non-expert contributions.
“In proof of concept, we have seen that non-experts write concise, useful, and easy-to-understand notes, which often cite valuable expert sources,” the company wrote in a blog post..
Twitter, along with other social media companies, has been tackling the best way to combat misinformation about its service. Despite stricter rules and enforcement, falsehoods about the U.S. presidential election and the coronavirus continue to spread.
But if the effort works, Twitter will have to anticipate misuse and bad actors trying to play the system in their favor.
To help remove unhelpful or troll-created notes, for example, Twitter plans to attach a “utility score” to each of them and label the “currently deemed useful” notes.
The company said Birdwatch will not replace other tags and fact checks that Twitter currently uses, primarily for election misinformation and COVID-19 and misleading posts.
The program will begin with 1,000 users and eventually extend beyond the United States
San Francisco-based Twitter said it is trying to make sure Birdwatch has a wide range of perspectives and participants, a permanent problem on Wikipedia, where many of the contributors and editors are white men.
“If we have more applicants than pilot spaces, we will admit random accounts, prioritizing accounts that tend to follow and interact with different audiences and content than those of existing participants,” Twitter wrote.