Twitter is one of the many social media platforms that have made it big in the online space.
Millions of people use the app for entertainment purposes, but the platform also serves as a channel for breaking news and conveying information about a variety of topics.
Since many people have access to it, and they have the power to post whatever they want (as guided by its policies), the information displayed is not always accurate. This has been a problem for a long time, and there is no easy way to address it, but Twitter says it has plans to at least alleviate cases of fake/unsubstantiated news.
This week, Twitter announced a partnership with The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters. The collaboration with the seasoned media houses seeks to expand the platform’s effort to identify and elevate creditable information.
We are committed to making sure that when people come to Twitter to see what’s happening, they are able to easily find reliable information. Twitter will be able to expand the scale and increase the speed of our efforts to provide timely, authoritative context across the wide range of global topics and conversations that happen on Twitter every day – Twitter, in a statement.
At the moment, Twitter employs various forms to provide credible information and context. Users can use the Explore Tab to look at curated subjects, and the Trends tab plays a key role in attaching more context to a trending topic.
Now, how will the partnership help in expanding Twitter’s efforts of relaying credible information and news to its users?
Well, the corporation has the following to say:
Through this program, Twitter’s Curation team will increase our capacity to add reliable context to conversations happening on Twitter. This joint work will increase the scale and speed of the current work outlined above by:
- Increasing and improving context sharing by ensuring that credible information is available in real time around key conversations as they emerge on Twitter
- Anticipating and proactively identifying emerging conversation by proactively providing context on topics garnering widespread interest including those that could potentially generate misleading information.
- Improving the effectiveness of product features by supporting product experimentation and existing initiatives where additional credible context could make our work better.
At the first stages of the program, AP and Reuters will focus on English-language content.
Finally, Twitter says that this program is just one part of its ongoing efforts to help people understand the conversation happening on its service.
