SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter is enlisting its users to help combat misinformation on its service by flagging and notating misleading and false tweets.
The pilot program unveiled Monday, called Birdwatch, allows a preselected group of users — for now, only in the US — who sign up through Twitter. Those who want to sign up must have a US-based phone carrier, verified email and phone number, and no recent Twitter rule violations.
Twitter said it wants both experts and non-experts to write Birdwatch notes. It cited Wikipedia as a site that thrives with non-expert contributions.
“In concept testing, we’ve seen non-experts write concise, helpful and easy-to-understand notes, often citing valuable expert sources,” the company wrote in a blog post.
Twitter, along with other social media companies, has been grappling how best to combat misinformation on its service. Despite tightened rules and enforcement, falsehoods about the US presidential election and the coronavirus continue to spread.
But if the effort is to work, Twitter will have to anticipate misuse and bad actors trying to game the system to their advantage.
To help weed out unhelpful or troll-created notes, for instance, Twitter plans to attach a “helpfulness score” to each one and will label helpful ones “currently rated helpful.”
The company said Birdwatch will not replace other labels and fact checks Twitter currently uses — primarily for election and COVID-19-related misinformation and misleading posts.
The program will start with 1,000 users and eventually expand beyond the US
San Francisco-based Twitter said it is trying to ensure that Birdwatch has a diverse range of perspectives and participants — an ongoing problem at Wikipedia, where many of the contributors and editors are white men.
“If we have more applicants than pilot slots, we will randomly admit accounts, prioritizing accounts that tend to follow and engage with different audiences and content than those of existing participants,” Twitter wrote.
Twitter launches crowd-sourced fact-checking project
https://arab.news/4uvwu
Twitter launches crowd-sourced fact-checking project
- Twitter said it wants both experts and non-experts to write Birdwatch notes
- Birdwatch will not replace other labels and fact checks Twitter currently uses
Israel arrests 2 Turkish CNN journalists over live broadcast outside IDF HQ
- Police said reporter Emrah Cakmak and cameraman Halil Kahraman were detained on suspicion of filming a sensitive security facility
- Since the Gaza war began, restrictions have expanded significantly, including tighter limits on filming soldiers on duty and sensitive or strategic sites
LONDON: Israeli police have arrested two Turkish CNN journalists who were broadcasting live outside the Israel Defense Forces’ headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Police said the pair were detained on suspicion of filming a sensitive security facility, according to the Israel Police Spokesperson’s Unit.
Reporter Emrah Cakmak and cameraman Halil Kahraman, from the network’s Turkish-language channel, had been reporting near the IDF’s Kirya military headquarters on Tuesday after Iran launched another missile barrage at Tel Aviv and other parts of central Israel.
During the live broadcast, two men believed to be soldiers approached the crew and seized the reporter’s phone, according to initial reports and a video circulating online that could not be independently verified.
Police said officers were dispatched after receiving reports of two people carrying cameras and allegedly broadcasting in real time for a foreign outlet.
עיתונאים של CNN טורקיה נעצרו לאחר שצילמו את בסיס הקרייה@NoamIhmels pic.twitter.com/t8a5P9yXfw
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) March 3, 2026
Israel’s long-standing military censorship system, overseen by the IDF Military Censor, has long barred journalists and civilians from publishing material deemed harmful to national security.
Since the Gaza war began, restrictions have expanded significantly, including tighter limits on filming soldiers on duty and sensitive or strategic sites.
After a series of similar incidents involving foreign media — most of them Palestinian citizens of Israel working for Arab-language and international media, along with foreign journalists — during the 12-Day War, Israeli police halted live international broadcasts from missile impact sites, citing concerns that exact locations were being revealed.
The Government Press Office later imposed a blanket ban on live coverage from crash and impact areas.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir subsequently ordered that all foreign journalists obtain prior written approval from the military censor before broadcasting — live or recorded — from combat zones or missile strike locations.
Police said that when officers asked the CNN Turk crew to identify themselves, they presented expired press cards and were taken in for questioning.
Burhanettin Duran, head of Turkiye’s Directorate of Communications, condemned the arrests as an attack on the press and said Ankara is working to secure the journalists’ release.
