Twitter expands 'Birdwatch,' its crowdsourced fact-checking program

On Thursday, it was announced that it would be expanding its Birdwatch project.

Birdwatch was introduced last year as a pilot program and allows contributors who are in good standing with the social media company to address misleading and provide context in the form of a note. There were notes created by the pilot's 10,000 contributors on a separate test site. The company says that a small group of people will be able to see and rate the quality of the Birdwatch notes in the US.

Birdwatch contributors from different perspectives must rate a note as helpful for it to show up in a tweet. The quality of Birdwatch notes will be assessed by the news agencies thanks to the new partnerships with The Associated Press.

Russia is known for its use of misinformation and propaganda, and the announcement comes in the midst of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The development of Birdwatch in the first place was due to incorrect information on the internet. A new emphasis has been put on how other social media companies are responding to the situation in Ukraine.

Birdwatch might be soon be showing up in your feed. Credit: Twitter

The decision to expand the Birdwatch pilot is based on promising results from surveys and feedback from the pilot contributors and academic researchers. According to an internal survey, people were less likely to agree with the substance of a potentially misleading Tweet if they read a note about it. An image of Paul McCartney waving a Ukrainian flag was from 2008.

An example post of how Birdwatch works. Credit: Twitter

Birdwatch is one of the features that seems to be more proactive in fighting misinformation. The question of its effectiveness is still unanswered. According to The Washington Post, Birdwatch contributors only flagged about 43 of the daily 140-character messages.