Twitter Expanding Birdwatch Community Fact-Checking Programme: Details

Twitter announced on Wednesday that it is bringing several new additions to its Birdwatch community fact-checking programme that was launched last year. The Birdwatch programme consists of users who help identify potentially misleading tweets and add notes to provide context with added information. The social media platform has now revealed that it is rolling out a new onboarding process for the programme. Furthermore, Twitter will be increasing the visibility of notes to increase the seemingly positive impact Birdwatch has been having on the community.

Twitter revealed in a blog post on Wednesday that it is rolling out a new onboarding process aimed at incentivising contributors to write and rate notes thoughtfully.

New members will start with an Impact Score of zero which will be initially increased by rating other notes as Helpful or Not Helpful. After raising their Impact Score to five, users will be able to write notes themselves. However, repeatedly writing Not Helpful notes will get the contributor locked from writing notes.

With the rollout of a new onboarding process, Twitter aims to expand its contributor base as well. It plans to frequently accept large groups of eligible applicants for the Birdwatch programme and monitor the impact of a larger base.

Twitter will also be increasing the visibility of notes on public tweets in the coming weeks. People in the US will see more tweets that Birdwatch identifies as Helpful.