Twitter has announced their collaboration with The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters to “expand” their “efforts to identify and elevate credible information on Twitter.”
AP News and Reuters currently partner with Facebook to fact check. Now, Twitter will be able to increase the speed that it is able to verify factual vs misinformation.
On top of the new partnership, Twitter is currently in development of their new feature deemed “Birdwatch”. This will allow a community based approach to “misinformation”, which allows users to flag tweets they believe are misleading or need more information.
Twitter’s Vice President of Product, Keith Coleman, wrote in January, “Birdwatch allows people to identify information in Tweets they believe is misleading and write notes that provide informative context. We believe this approach has the potential to respond quickly when misleading information spreads, adding context that people trust and find valuable. Eventually we aim to make notes visible directly on Tweets for the global Twitter audience, when there is consensus from a broad and diverse set of contributors.”
While Project Birdwatch remains already in effect, will this new partnership be a positive effect for Twitter, or will they make AP News and Reuters—traditionally reliable news sources—start to feel more opinionated? One can only imagine the 2023 Associated Press Stylebook.
What is the definition of misinformation? Should social media only allow popular perspective to be considered factual? Are journalists in charge of creating facts? Can the CDC change what we consider facts? Should online open discussion be banned? Freedom of speech shouldn’t suppress an inconvenient viewpoint. What is the definition of freedom? Does it include censorship of resistance?
As technology has become our main form of consistent communication, Big Tech is changing the way human beings are allowed to speak to each other. Should human discussion and communication—outside of professional environment—be controlled?
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