Birdwatching on Twitter?

 Today, Twitter announced a new way to combat misinformation called Birdwatch. Birdwatch is said to be a "community driven approach to addressing misleading information." A video that twitter linked to their announcement tweet shows how this new feature works. In short, if a user sees misinformation on twitter, they have the option to add a note to the tweet, adding "context." 

    As of now, this feature is being tested only in the United States, and the notes will not appear directly on the tweet associated with the note rather, for the time being, they can be found at birdwatch.twitter.com (US users only). 

    I think it will be extremely interesting to see the public response to Birdwatch, and how Twitter users interact with it, either positively or negatively.

    I've noticed in the recent years an increase of social media platforms implementing various forms of fact-checking software, like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, among others. I think with the right usage, this feature could be very helpful. The only thing about this that makes me wary is the fact that it is community driven. To me, this is a double edged sword, on the one hand, I think it's a great idea to not have a mysterious company control what and how something is checked, but you do also have users on Twitter who may use this feature for reasons it is not intended for like trolling. 

    With that thought in mind, Twitter is letting users apply who meet certain eligibility requirements like "no recent Twitter rules violations." The rest of those requirements and the link to sign up can be found here, Birdwatch Guide- Signing up. I hope that this application process will be effective, and Twitter will be able to pilot Birdwatch on a larger scale.