Twitter announced on Monday that it will be collaborating with The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters to expand its efforts to identify and push credible information on the platform.
Twitter, The Associated Press, Reuter join forces
Twitter said that this joint program will increase its capacity to add reliable context to conversations happening on the platform. People can now expect more contexts with regards to what appears on their trends list, as well as links to credible sources. This will help specifically when the Twitter Curation team does not have access to expertise or a high volume of reputable reporting. This is where The Associated Press and Reuters will be useful.
The team will also be responsible for capturing widespread information, including information that has the potential to mislead the masses. Instead of waiting until something goes viral, Twitter will contextualise developing chat at pace with or in anticipation of the public conversation.
How will the collaboration end viral fake news on Twitter?
The collaboration will be improving the effectiveness of Birdwatch. The Associated Press and Reuters will provide feedback on the information provided by the participants of Birdwatch, a product that checks for the accuracy of information.
“Trust, accuracy and impartiality are at the heart of what Reuters does every day, providing billions of people with the information they need to make smart decisions. Those values also drive our commitment to stopping the spread of misinformation. We’re excited to partner with Twitter to leverage our deep global and local expertise to serve the public conversation with reliable information,” Hazel Baker, Head of UGC Newsgathering at Reuters said.
Tom Januszewski, Vice President of Global Business Development AP added that the work to bring factual journalism to the platform is “the core to our mission”.
“We are particularly excited about leveraging AP’s scale and speed to add context to online conversations, which can benefit from easy access to the facts,” he said.
How does Twitter currently ensure sharing of credible information?
Sometimes Twitter will attach additional context to a Trend in the form of a Moment, a single Tweet, or via a written description. This helps you catch up where a Top Trend started. Another way to make you catch up is the Explore Tab where there is a range of subjects and content curated just for you.
When you search for keywords on the search box, Twitter will bring up information from credible sources that debunk misinformation first.
In cases where a tweet that carries a bunch of misinformation is already on the Timeline, Twitter uses Labels, attach reliable information in Moments.
