Even though they are, by far, the smartest species to ever walk the earth, human beings have always retained a strong tendency of making mistakes. The same has already been proven quite a few times throughout our history, with each testimony practically forcing us to look for some sort of a defensive cover. To the world’s credit, we will find the perfect answer to our conundrum once we bring dedicated regulatory bodies into the fold. Having a well-defined authority across each and every area was a game-changer, as it instantly gave us a cushion against many of our shortcomings, therefore also providing us with a shot at all those possibilities that we couldn’t have imagined otherwise. Nevertheless, before we were even able to realize those possibilities, the utopia just dropped dead, and if dig into the reasons, it was all technology’s fault. You see, the moment technology and its layered nature over the scene, it allowed certain people an unprecedented chance to exploit others for their own benefit. In case the stated dynamic wasn’t devastating enough, the whole runner started to materialize on such a massive scale that it expectantly overwhelmed our governing forces and sent them back to the drawing board. After spending a long time in the wilderness, though, the regulators are now finally looking on the cusp of making a comeback. This shift has, in fact, turned more and more evident over the recent past, and Twitter’s latest move can very well solidify its presence moving forward.
Twitter is officially expanding its crowdsourced fact-checking program known as Birdwatch. According to certain reports, the expansion will see the company adding 1,000 more contributors to this program every week, but a bigger footprint comes with one pretty clear caveat. Instead of just being able to immediately add their fact-checks to provide additional context to tweets, the contributors will now have to prove themselves as capable of writing notes or annotations on tweets. As for how they can do so, the person will need to start off by identifying the helpful notes written by others. The efficiency around here will be judged through a “rating impact” scale, which will assign each contributor a score between 0 and 5. The score you get will depend on the way your verdict aligns with the final status i.e. Helpful or Not Helpful, of the note. While a similar verdict will fetch you points, your rating can also drop, in case there are any discrepancies within the stated judgment.
“To be shown on a tweet, a note actually has to be found helpful by people who have historically disagreed in their ratings,” explained Twitter Product VP, Keith Coleman. “This is a novel approach. We’re not aware of other areas where this has been done before,”
Interestingly enough, even after attaining the status of a contributor, you’d need to maintain a certain level of accuracy in regards to your notes or you can also lose the said status.