Twitter has announced that it will be working with news providers Reuters and the Associated Press (AP) to combat disinformation on the site.
Today I’m excited to announce a new collaboration with @AP and @Reuters to expand how we highlight credible context on Twitter: https://t.co/IthLmYxkWc
— Joanna Geary ⚡️ (@JoannaG) August 2, 2021
The objective of the partnership, explained in the above tweet by Twitter’s Senior Director of Curation Joanna Geary, is to enable Twitter to ensure that when users are visiting its site, they can easily find reliable information about current and trending topics.
Twitter’s blog post states that the partnership will allow its Curation team to increase its capacity so that it can add credible information to conversations on the platform.
The program will also enable Twitter to expand its current efforts to tackle disinformation, which includes labels on posts that are sharing wrong or disputed info. The labels on posts currently have a link to a reliable source so that users can get more informative context on the topic, and include links to the Twitter rules in some cases.
How will this partnership tackle disinformation?
Twitter has given a few ways it hopes the agreement will address the situation, including:
Improving and increasing the sharing of contextual information
This will ensure that users will be able to access credible information more quickly, so that they have more information at their fingertips. This is important if Twitter’s algorithm is unsure whether the information is true, Twitter’s Curation team doesn’t have any specific expertise of the topic, or the Curation team is unable to gain any information about it.
Anticipating future topics and emerging conversations
Twitter will be able to flag any future topics and emerging conversations that could produce misleading information, meaning that for popular topics that go viral online, Twitter will not have to wait until credible information is released. This will enable Twitter to flag this content, warning users that the information may be inaccurate or misleading.
Improvement of product feature effectiveness
The program will also support the experimentation of products and any existing initiatives on the platform where credible information could make Twitter’s work better. An example from Twitter’s blog post cites its Birdwatch programme, and says:
“Birdwatch will use feedback from AP and Reuters as one way to assess the quality of information elevated by Birdwatch participants.”
The importance of being trustworthy online has only increased since the onset of the pandemic, especially when so much misinformation on the subject has been publicised through platforms like Twitter and across the web. This new collaboration with AP and Reuters shows us that Twitter is continuing to innovate new features into its platform in an attempt to promote credible material.
If you are looking for content that is accurate and credible, speak to the friendly team here at Engage Web.
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