Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Twitter Social Networks

Twitter's Misinformation-Fighting Tool 'Birdwatch' Makes Mistakes (poynter.org) 83

Posted by EditorDavid from the who-watches-the-watchmen dept.
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a non-profit journalism school and research organization, analyzed Twitter's 1,000-user pilot test of its Birdwatch fact-checking platform. Their conclusion?

It makes mistakes. On February 5, Twitter flagged a post from controversial YouTuber Tim Pool that said the 2020 U.S. presidential election was rigged. The platform noted that the claim was disputed and turned off engagement "due to a risk of violence."

But, on Birdwatch, the social media platform's experiment in crowdsourced fact-checking, users overwhelmingly said the tweet was not misleading, according to a Feb. 14 analysis of Twitter data. And most Birdwatch users indicated in the tool that they found these notes that supported debunked claims helpful and informative...

On Feb. 17, Twitter altered its algorithm and notes on the Pool tweet are no longer rated as helpful, although they are still listed below the post.
Before the change, less than a third of the "helpful" notes contained a source link that wasn't just another tweet, Poynter notes (though after the change, that number rose to 75%). "It's a timely illustration of one of the problems facing the Birdwatch model: Can an algorithm fed by a seemingly random group of people ever accurately 'rate' the truth?"

PolitiFact's editor-in-chief suggested better training, incentives, and the use of professional fact-checkers. But even then, they still told Poynter "I'm pretty dubious of tech companies who believe their users will moderate content for free for them. Most users don't see it as their job to help the platforms run their own businesses."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Twitter's Misinformation-Fighting Tool 'Birdwatch' Makes Mistakes More

Twitter's Misinformation-Fighting Tool 'Birdwatch' Makes Mistakes

Comments Filter:
  • Here's the real story. I looked into this for over and hour yesterday. The Poynter Institute is a far left democratic party mouthpiece and they're mad that some people on Twitter actually have their head screwed on straight and can call out fake nonsense on both sides of the aisle.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There are probably those people, but that person is not tim pool. Ive had many of his stories sent to me and half the time he doesnt even read the article that starts his rants. He uses their headlines to just veer off into whatever right wing inflammatory discussion topic he wishes to talk about that will get clicks on his youtube channel for money

      I.e. most recently was how biden is all bad and evil because he was going to make insulin more expensive. However the article that started his entire 20min segme

    • I looked into this for over and hour yesterday Thank Christ you didn't say "I do my own research", because then you'd have sounded illiterate.

    • Here's the misinformation contained in the tweet:

      a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.

      Oops, that's a quote from the actual linked article [time.com], which the tweet just summarized completely accurately...

  • Missing the Poynt (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SQL Error ( 16383 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @08:41PM (#61084720)

    Poynter didn't find that Birdwatch makes mistakes. They found that they disagree... With Pool's entirely reasonable characterisation of the Time article.

    Watch Birdwatch get scrapped for not agreeing with the media gatekeepers.

    • Re:Missing the Poynt (Score:4, Informative)

      by Culture20 ( 968837 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @08:49PM (#61084738)

      Pool's entirely reasonable characterisation of the Time article.

      Was this the article that describes a well funded and organized "cabal" (the word from the article) of elite democrats from disparate fields to "fortify" the election to achieve "the proper result" since, at the time, Trump was holding steady in the polls?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The mistake was crowd sourcing it. They should have known that the wisdom of crowds is... Questionable. And also prone to being swamped by people trying to make a point, rather than evaluating the content.

    • They cannot control the narrative if everyday people can respond. They can probably salvage their propaganda machine if they just limit the approves to âoetrustedâ partners.

    • A bald faced lie is not reasonable. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted."

      https://time.com/5936036/secre... [time.com]

      The Time story is about how a very large number of people from multiple interest groups and political persuasions came together to protect the integrity of the election against a force that wanted to destroy it, whi

    • Bridwatch is just garbage-in garbage-out. It just so happens the majority of contributors agrees with what your viewpoint here. It doesn't reflect whether it is in fact true.

      And to you other point, removing the media gatekeepers doesn't mean it's replaces with a better system. In fact it being replaced with a much worse system as we have seen in the past decade or so.

    • Birdwatch didn't make mistakes. It did exactly what it claims to do. It allows any random moron to rate content and push the lies that they are comfortable with as fact. Pool deliberately lied about the content of the article and his post was flagged accordingly, but here we are with this post rated up to a fucking 5. Slashdot moderation has been taken over by the same cesspool of morons.

  • Perhaps it should have been called a "Fighting Misinformation-Tool".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      There is only one legal misinformation tool, the courts, prove it in court. That is the standard, that has always been the standard until now. Now it is WESAYSO Corporation rule, a corporations claims it is misinformation, it is now misinformation backed by corrupt governments. The individual has ZERO right to the truth, they can not speak it, they can not hear it, they can not see it. In the current corrupt status, only corporations can claim the truth, individuals can not.

      Courts as a bastion of truth, fo

  • "Birdwatch" is predicated on people being able to spot misinformation. When enough people report information as disinformation or vice versa then it starts doing the wrong thing. The tool only did what it was designed to do which was based on a flawed premise. Without any ground truth to base judgements on, it's impossible for such a tool to overcome bad actors and people who does not base judgements on ground truths.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Moryath ( 553296 )
      Precisely this. Relying on crowdsourcing to spot misinformation/disinformation is like relying on Wikipedia to be accurate. You can "hope" that it'll somehow work all you want, but at the end of the day George Carlin's argument turns out to be the driving reality: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are dumber than that. "

    • Yep, when you ask Twitter users to mark whether a Tweet or true or not, all you're going to get is a vote on whether they agree with whatever position they think it supports. That is, it can only reinforce the echo chamber.

      Today on Slashdot:
      Somebody points out a fact X that is stated TWICE in the linked article.
      Somebody says "nope, the article says the opposite".
      Of course the person who clearly didn't read the article is modded +5 informative.

      Somebody says "state Y sucks for foo". They should be more like

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      When 4chan catches on to this, I can see the makings of another Tay [wikipedia.org].

  • It looks like they're trying to create (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @09:06PM (#61084770)
    a really complicated version of /.'s moderation system. Good luck with that. /. just barely gets by because hardly anyone uses it anymore. Twitter shapes geopolitics. Good luck keeping trolls and hell freakin' state actors from gaming the system.

  • How much does anyone wanna bet that all the "mistakes" will begin to tend in the same direction someday?

  • So here we are, now implementing magical algorithms to make sure no one posts anything that might not agree with our Big Tech Overlords. No need for debate or discussion or counter claims. God forbid there should be any nuance.

    I always thought total censorship and thought control would come from the government a la Orwell. Instead we have something in place that may prove far worse: a handful of super wealthy who are not responsible in any way to any one, unelected, self-appointed, unstoppable. They sol

    • >They solely determine what we are allowed to say online now. There is only ever one opinion, it is theirs, it is always correct and all other voices are shut down for simply having a different view of life.

      This is exactly how r/the_donald and r/conservative worked/works on Reddit reflecting how media on the right has been behaving.

      As with election rigging, this line of attack is projection through and through.

  • Crowdsourcing facts, really? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by I've Got Three Cats ( 4794043 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @09:47PM (#61084836)
    When 50% of your population believes a lie like the 2020 US election was stolen, or is just generally misinformed about a lot of stuff, crowdsourcing your fact checks may not be such a good idea.

    • Re:Crowdsourcing facts, really? (Score:5, Funny)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Saturday February 20, 2021 @11:38PM (#61085016) Homepage Journal

      > believes a lie like the 2020 US election was stolen

      It wasn't stolen - it was fortified by an elite cabal to achieve the proper result.

      Jeez, nobody reads TFA anymore.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AlexHilbertRyan ( 7255798 )
      no the real problem is 50% of americans believe in god.
  • He was literally quoting a times article. This far left "fact checking" organization is just mad people might be exposed to some actual truth for a change.

  • .. of governments, organisations, businesses and other 'not individuals' and leave individuals alone?

    Who here would think that Twitter or anyone else would have blocked the Assange is a rapist misinformation that was being spread by the above?

    No - what we have going on here is going to be used as a tool of suppressing information that doesn't fit into the narrative of the misinformed majority.

  • The actual thing is, Tim was right. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Chas ( 5144 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @10:07PM (#61084884) Homepage Journal

    Poynter is pissed that they got overruled.
    Birdwatch did what it was supposed to do. Went for NPOV.
    Whereas Poynter was pushing a partisan line.

    So now Poynter is going to attack Birdwatch for threatening their hegemony on "facts".

  • Lets define our terms (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by sinij ( 911942 )
    In the context of the linked article "Makes mistakes" = does not blindly enforce the approved narrative.

    Fact checkers do make mistakes, often knowingly and for partisan reasons, but the one quoted is the opposite example - it working as intended. Tim Pool (and many others!) correctly pointed out that Left was gloating about doing immoral and arguably illegal things in that Time Magazine article. Even if you agree with the necessity of the outcome, tossing out Trump, the end does not justify the means! More

  • maybe it makes mistakes, but this wasn't it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by superwiz ( 655733 ) on Saturday February 20, 2021 @11:26PM (#61085002) Journal
    Tim Poole's tweet quoted (word-for-word) from a Time magazine article. An attributed quote cannot be misleading unless it's a misquote. This was not.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      An attributed quote cannot be misleading unless it's a misquote.

      Attribution can be used as an appeal to authority [wikipedia.org] as a means to mislead, making it a cloak of legitimacy to attempt to hide a factual error.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        An attributed quote cannot be misleading unless it's a misquote.

        Attribution can be used as an appeal to authority [wikipedia.org] as a means to mislead, making it a cloak of legitimacy to attempt to hide a factual error.

        And a circle can be a gold ring or a pile of shit.

  • ''Can an algorithm fed by a seemingly random group of people ever accurately 'rate' the truth?"''

    It depends on a few things. First off, only if there is a specific set of guidelines and your raters are paid and qualified to apply ratings. The rating staff must have incentive to appropriately apply the guidelines for their decisions, they must be educated and their quality managed by the organization. And, your engineers are constantly developing the algorithm to provide the highest quality results. It's mu

  • As always, why do people always skip the easiest simplest option of turning twitter off.

  • I actually read the article in Time, most of it anyway, last week. I can guarantee I'm ahead of 90% of the blowhards commenting here on Slashdot, where we don't even get a link to the article...

    The article did note, within the first couple paragraphs, that it could be problematic. The idea of a group of self-described liberals holding meetings for months around the election, hiring lawyers (in response to the Blitzkrieg of Republican lawsuits) and organizing to boost the turnout? That's readymade conspiracy

  • You get what you pay for. Google maps now has some moronic reviews.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • PolitiFact's editor-in-chief suggested better training, incentives, and the use of professional fact-checkers. But even then, they still told Poynter "I'm pretty dubious of tech companies who believe their users will moderate content for free for them. Most users don't see it as their job to help the platforms run their own businesses."

    For example [thefederalist.com], Harris blatantly lied about the vaccine efforts that they inherited and Politifact won't call her onto the mat like they did Trump and Pence.

    This is very serious

  • The Birdwatcher can't differentiate between a penguin and a dodo.

  • How is this not political censorship by Twitter? Freedom of speech means that BOTH sides of the argument must be heard. It's up to people to decide. Otherwise, Twitter is, in effect, a left-wing political activist organisation. (Which it is).

Slashdot Top Deals

"The medium is the massage." -- Crazy Nigel

Close