Have you ever encountered very legit-sounded information on Twitter? It is undoubtedly true that even information can be found at the tip of your finger, most of the info can possibly be false which then gets spreaded causing disasters.

Twitter saw this coming (of course they do) and came up with a solution to fix this issue. Twitter has launched Birdwatch program, to which made up its name, addressing misinformation on the platform by allowing users to fact-check tweets.

The program is already in the pilot phase and is including 1,000 users in the US to start with which they are able to add notes on the tweets providing the context.

For the beginning, the users can write the text but cannot be visible to Twitter but only limited to the public Birdwatch website. Pilot users can also rate notes by other participants there too. 

The Vice President of Product of Twitter, Keith Coleman wrote that they are confident that this approach will have the potential to concede shortly when deceiving information spreads, adding context that people trust and find valuable.

Twitter has assured the liaison last year but was not expected to get launched ahead of the US presidential election.

Twitter, like any other social media companies, has wrestled with the spread of misinformation and propaganda across its platform. The company steps in to fight the misinformation as the US presidential campaign goes and after by pointing out wrong or misleading information. The program has mixed results to it.

Twitter has interviewed over 100 people across the political spectrum, who told the company that the Birdwatch notes provided useful context to better understand the tweets. All data contributed to Birdwatch will be available and downloadable in TSV files, and Twitter will publish the algorithms that power the program publicly in a Birdwatch Guide, as said by the company.

To sign up to participate in Birdwatch, users can apply here.