The fight against misinformation on Twitter is something more akin to a daily war with each day bringing with it a new set of “facts” that require a level head and some careful reading.
For the layperson this is problematic because reading scientific studies isn’t like reading a book and deriving facts from long papers is time consuming.
So, Twitter is bringing some heavyweights in conveying reliable information – The Associated Press and Reuters.
“We are committed to making sure that when people come to Twitter to see what’s happening, they are able to easily find reliable information. Twitter will be able to expand the scale and increase the speed of our efforts to provide timely, authoritative context across the wide range of global topics and conversations that happen on Twitter every day,” writes senior director of Curation at Twitter, Joanna Geary.
The two news agencies will be working with Twitter’s Curation Team which helps provide context across a variety of areas within Twitter. For example, if you click on a trending topic you will more than likely see a card containing a tweet, a Moment of a written description which the Curation team has compiled. The same goes for the Explore page, Search, Prompts and Labels such as those for COVID-19.
With Reuters and AP on board, Twitter hopes to increase the amount of credible information shared through the areas outlined above while also improving the context of the information.
In addition, Twitter hopes to be more proactive as regards emerging conversations.
“Proactively providing context on topics garnering widespread interest including those that could potentially generate misleading information. Rather than waiting until something goes viral, Twitter will contextualize developing discourse at pace with or in anticipation of the public conversation,” adds Geary.
For now AP and Reuters will focus on content in English.
Importantly, the work that the Curation team will do will be independent of the work Twitter’s Trust and Safety do to determine whether Tweets are in violation of Twitter’s rules.
“This program is just one part of our ongoing efforts to help people understand the conversation happening on our service. People experience a range of public conversations on Twitter every day, and we’re committed to continuing our work to elevate credible information and context,” adds Geary.
The battle against misinformation is a daily fight and while having the AP and Reuters onboard will surely help, we have to wonder out loud whether this fight will extend beyond the United States borders.
As we’ve seen in the past Twitter’s efforts against the ills of the world, the focus has very much been on the US. Perhaps this partnership with Reuters and AP will change that but we’re not hopeful.
[Source – Twitter]
