Twitter collaborates with news organizations to combat misinformation.

 Twitter collaborates with news organizations to combat misinformation.

Twitter will work with Reuters and the Associated Press, two of the world's major news organizations, to refute misinformation on its messaging platform.

The news organizations will assist Twitter in providing additional context and background information on events that result in a large number of tweets.

Twitter thinks that this will help to prevent the spread of false information.

There has been renewed pressure on the platform to delete misleading content.

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When "facts are in dispute," Twitter claimed the collaboration will allow it to ensure that accurate and reliable information is quickly available. "Rather of waiting for something to go viral, Twitter will contextualize growing dialogue in real time or ahead of time," according to Twitter. When big or fast expanding Twitter conversations occur that are noteworthy or contentious, Twitter's Curation team gathers and promotes important context from reputable sources to counter potentially false material provided by users. Twitter claimed in a blog post that the new initiative will "improve the size and speed" of their efforts by expanding their "ability to add trustworthy context to Twitter discussions." 

When Twitter's Curation team "doesn't have the specialized knowledge or access to a large enough amount of respectable reporting on Twitter," the article claimed, content from Reuters and the Associated Press would boost information trustworthiness.

According to a Twitter spokesman, this is the first time the social media company has formally worked with news organizations to promote factual information on its platform.

Twitter introduced Birdwatch, a new community-moderation mechanism earlier this year that allowed volunteers to flag posts that were incorrect.

Twitter will collaborate with the two competing news organizations individually, beginning focusing on English-language content.

Trust, truth, and impartiality are at the "heart of what Reuters does every day," according to Hazel Baker, director of user-generated content newsgathering at Reuters, and "fuel" the company's "commitment to halting the spread of disinformation."

According to Tom Januszewski, the AP's vice president of global business development, the news organization has a "long history of working closely with Twitter, as well as other platforms, to broaden the reach of factual journalism."

"We're particularly thrilled about utilizing AP's breadth and speed to provide context to online debates," he said, "which may benefit from fast access to the facts."

Both Reuters and the Associated Press collaborate with Facebook on fact-checking.

This effort would be separate from the work done by Twitter's Trust & Safety teams to evaluate if Tweets are in violation of Twitter's guidelines. These teams' responsibilities include labeling tweets that include manipulated media, election disinformation, or sensitive material that is in violation of the platforms' regulations.

With 199 million daily Twitter users globally, according to a 2020 forecast by NYU Stern, Twitter has around 1,500 moderators.