Twitter to expand its fact-checking experiment, Birdwatch

Birdwatch was a limited experiment with 15,000 contributors writing fact-checking notes

Twitter is planning to expand its community fact-checking project known as Birdwatch. The social media platform is deepening its novel approach to a new form of content moderation. Birdwatch, launched last year, allows Twitter users to identify misleading tweets and flag them with notes to provide more clarity or point to accurate sources. Social media platforms have long been in a dilemma as to how to moderate their content. The company has been accused of doing too little to remove harmful posts. Billionaire Elon Musk, attempting to walk away from his $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter, has said the company should remove fewer posts and act as a public town hall for free speech. Tweets with Birdwatch notes are left on the service, and its algorithmic distribution to other users is not affected.

Until now, Birdwatch was a limited experiment with 15,000 contributors writing fact-checking notes. Twitter said it will now add about 1,000 new contributors per week. Birdwatch notes are held on a different website, but half of the users in the United States will begin seeing notes in their Twitter timelines, the company said.