By Barbara Ortutay, AP Technology Writer
Twitter is expanding Birdwatch, its crowd-sourced fact checking project it started as a small and little-publicized pilot program more than a year ago.
The program lets regular people flag and notate misleading tweets. This is separate from Twitter's news verification partnerships with The Associated Press and Reuters.
Starting Thursday, a small, randomized group of U.S. Twitter users will begin to see these Birdwatch notes on some tweets, the company said. They will be able to rate them as helpful — or not.
To contribute fact checks to Birdwatch, anyone in the U.S. can sign up if they have a verified phone number with a U.S. carrier and no recent Twitter rule violations. They also have to agree to three rules, Twitter says: contribute to build understanding, act in good faith and be helpful, even to those who disagree.
Twitter, along with other social media companies, has been grappling how best to combat misinformation on its service. Despite tightened rules and enforcement, falsehoods have continued to spread, now exasperated by the war in Ukraine and Russia's state-backed propaganda machine.
The company has said it wants both experts and non-experts to write Birdwatch notes and cited Wikipedia as a site that thrives with non-expert contributions. The ratings, meanwhile are similar to Reddit's up and downvotes for comments.
For the notes to be visible on a tweet, it must be rated helpful by enough people from "different perspectives," Twitter said, adding that it determines different perspectives by how people have rated notes in the past — not by their demographics.
Sean “Diddy” Combs to stay in jail while appeals court takes up bail fight
A federal appeals court judge has ruled to keep Sean "Diddy" Combs locked up while he makes a third bid for bail in his sex trafficking case, which is slated to go to trial in May.
In a decision filed Friday, Circuit Judge William J. Nardini denied the hip-hop mogul's immediate release from jail while a three-judge panel weighs his bail request.
Combs' lawyers appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 30 after two judges rejected his release.
Combs, 54, has been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn since his Sept. 16 arrest on charges that he used his "power and prestige" as a music star to induce female victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male sex workers in events dubbed "Freak Offs."
Combs has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges alleging he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
At a bail hearing three weeks ago, a judge rejected the defense's $50 million bail proposal that would've allowed the "I'll Be Missing You" singer to be placed under house arrest at his Florida mansion with GPS monitoring and strict limits on visitors.
Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr., who has since recused himself from the case, said that prosecutors had presented "clear and convincing evidence" that Combs is a danger to the community. He said "no condition or set of conditions" could guard against the risk of Combs obstructing the investigation or threatening or harming witnesses.
In their appeal, Combs' lawyers argued that the judge had "endorsed the government's exaggerated rhetoric" and ordered Combs... Read More