Elon Musk shared an adorable post featuring himself and son X at an important family event. Millions of Musk fans got an exclusive peek into Elon’s personal life at an important family milestone.
Birdwatch notes are becoming more and more prevalent after Twitter was purchased by Musk, providing users with a way to collectively add context to potentially misleading Twitter posts.
Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey slams Musk’s name
Jack Dorsey was an outspoken advocate of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter last year for $44 billion, even citing him as his sole trust to lead Twitter. But more recently, Dorsey has shown signs of having changed his opinion; according to posts reviewed by CNN he has expressed disillusionment at some level with him and has publicly voiced these sentiments via Bluesky posts.
Dorsey’s posts mark an increasing criticism of Musk’s management of Twitter, a company once considered his pride and joy. Since Musk took control, Twitter has experienced numerous service disruptions, cut staff numbers and made numerous controversial policy and feature changes such as reinstating accounts banned for rule violations or charging users to be verified.
Dorsey has taken out his frustration on Musk through his new forum, which is positioning itself as an alternative to Twitter. Since its inception, this invite-only site has attracted high-profile users such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and model Chrissy Teigen; moreover, journalists interested in new technology concepts such as blockchain, Web3 and non-fungible tokens have been encouraged to sign up and promote itself for updates from this platform.
Named Birdwatch in honor of Twitter feature widely hailed for helping combat falsehoods on its platform, Birdwatch allows users to vouch for the accuracy of tweets by rating them and feeding that data into an algorithm that creates consensus around each viewpoint without bias or other problems.
Dorsey said in one of his Bluesky posts that he considered calling the site Community Notes or Fact Checking; however, Birdwatch seemed more fitting as its mission is not simply about flagging misleading tweets but providing context around them – “we’re trying to help people make more informed decisions in an age of misinformation and propaganda” as Dorsey explained it in another Bluesky post. Also fitting was its creator being someone devoted to spreading truth in order to save humanity he added.
Twitter’s Birdwatch feature flags misleading tweets
Birdwatch, soon to be rebranded as Community Notes, was developed to detect tweets that contain falsehoods and provide context. Twitter says the system will work for both political and personal accounts alike: its goal “is to provide more contextual information about what people are discussing on Twitter; not act as an authoritative source or adjudicate facts”.
Users can flag tweets they think are inaccurate by clicking a “Birdwatch” button on the site. Once flagged, it will show up as a separate tab with a warning message and allow other users to vote whether or not they found the information helpful; these votes will then be taken into consideration when ranking search results for that tweet.
At first, Birdwatch contributors could only participate in a small test group of 10,000 Birdwatch contributors; now, any Twitter user in the US can apply to join its pilot and contribute by selecting tweets with additional context and adding notes about them; Twitter then ranks these notes and displays them on its separate Birdwatch website.
Tweets with Birdwatch notes attached have been shown to cause users to be 20-40% less likely to agree with it compared to tweets without them. Twitter will eventually make these notes visible directly on tweets once it feels confident they will provide usefulness to a wide range of Twitter users.
Twitter’s expansion of its program comes amid mounting concern over fake news and conspiracy theories on its platform. Already, efforts are being taken to tackle this problem – such as adding labels that identify tweets promoting conspiracies or nonexistent cures.
Early this month, Twitter announced it was testing a new way of fact-checking tweets. Reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong first noticed its prototype this summer; however, it was later removed from the web app before reappearing in iOS and Mac apps with annotation capabilities by clicking an icon next to each photo in a tweet.
Notes is a new tool from Twitter designed to allow users to provide more context on a tweet they’re referencing by providing short descriptions and links of articles or sources they cite, similar to Wikipedia’s citation feature. In addition to giving more background on an issue for the public and helping reduce duplicate content and spamming, Notes provides deeper and more in-depth explanations of controversial issues than ever before – though critics worry this tool could be exploited for biased or political agenda-driven tweeting.
Twitter’s Birdwatch feature adds context to misleading tweets
Twitter’s new initiative to combat misinformation on its platform, Birdwatch, allows users to collaborate in providing context to tweets that may be misinforming. Twitter aims for its goal to become a more informed world by offering such an initiative.
Twitter announced on April 17 that they are expanding access to Birdwatch for all U.S. users, while streamlining its onboarding process in order to make writing high-quality notes easier and rating them as helpful. They have also begun publicly disclosing what makes an outstanding Birdwatch note.
Twitter remains unclear on exactly how it vets its Birdwatch contributors; however, the company recently came under scrutiny after accidentally accepting an overt QAnon conspiracy theorist into its program last year. Still, so far the results of Twitter’s Birdwatch pilot program appear promising; many critics applauded tech firms trying new methods to combat misinformation on their platforms.
Twitter’s Birdwatch team evaluates any tweet reported as misleading by users and reviews it to determine if it meets its rules for misinformation. If it does meet those standards, a note from Birdwatch will be added below the original post if appropriate. Twitter previously used its own internal misinformation moderation tools but now the crowdsourced approach offered by Birdwatch may prove more effective at combatting misinformation issues.
Due to this issue, Birdwatch notes may not always be accurate or comprehensive; sometimes containing sarcasm, trolling or even partisan bickering; click-throughs reveal many that are less than helpful at providing answers.
Birdwatch also is correcting tweets that do not necessarily violate Twitter’s rules for misleading information; for instance, one Tweet that claimed the White House had raised inflation rates was corrected with a note from Birdwatch but still claimed this information was accurate.
Twitter has taken steps to avoid mistakes by increasing participation in Birdwatch and changing how it ranks the effectiveness of notes. Before, its ranking relied solely on how many people found it helpful, but now will also take into account whether the note has been rated by people from various political perspectives.
The company is working to inject more skepticism into the ranking system by making it clearer that ratings reflect a consensus of Twitter users, encouraging more individuals to contribute notes for rating as well as helping prevent bots from gaming the system by eliminating them when flagged as inaccurate.