Tech

Twitter Launches Crowdsourced Fact-Checking System Called “Birdwatch” to Fight “Misinformation”

Who saw this coming?

Published

1 month ago

Jan 25, 2021

Evan James

Twitter has rolled out a new feature to fight what they consider to be “misinformation.”

The new feature, released Monday, is called Birdwatch. In a post on the Twitter Blog, Vice President of Product Keith Coleman writes that Birdwatch will allow people to identify information in tweets that “they believe is misleading” and to write notes “that provide informative context.”

“We believe this approach has the potential to respond quickly when misleading information spreads, adding context that people trust and find valuable,” Coleman said.

As of now Birdwatch is a standalone site, though Twitter claims they will eventually make notes posted to Birdwatch directly visible on certain tweets.

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VP of Product Coleman continues: “In this first phase of the pilot, notes will only be visible on a separate Birdwatch site. On this site, pilot participants can also rate the helpfulness of notes added by other contributors. These notes are being intentionally kept separate from Twitter for now, while we build Birdwatch and gain confidence that it produces context people find helpful and appropriate. Additionally, notes will not have an effect on the way people see Tweets or our system recommendations.”

The format of Birdwatch will supposedly combine elements of Wikipedia and Reddit’s moderation tools, according to NBC News. Birdwatch users will be able to flag tweets from a dropdown menu on Twitter itself, but discussion about the flagged tweets will only be able to take place on the Birdwatch site. Birdwatch will also implement a rating system that will allow users to upvote or downvote the notes of others.

This is the logical development of Twitter’s commitment to identify and suppress content they deem “false” or “dangerous.” Keep an eye out for more such features in the future.

YOUR NEW MASTER: Twitter’s Head of Conversational Safety, a “Young, Queer Asian-American Businesswoman,” is “Rethinking” the Concept of User Safety

Tech

YouTube Censors Videos Posted by Independent Journalist Ford Fischer of Protests Near Biden’s Inauguration

Raw journalism hurts the globalist elite.

Published

3 days ago

Mar 4, 2021

Shane Trejo

Independent journalist Ford Fischer of News2Share is reporting that three of his YouTube videos are being censored.

Fischer announced in a Twitter post that the Google-owned video streaming service has targeted three of his videos that showed interactions between various protesters of different political stripes on Biden’s inauguration day.

Absolutely unbelievable.@TeamYouTube has now deleted three raw videos and SUSPENDED MY ACCOUNT for raw footage I took on the day of President Biden's Inauguration of religious extremist protesters being confronted by both leftist and pro-Trump activists.

We will fight back. pic.twitter.com/qq59HJyf3A

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) March 4, 2021

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The second video @TeamYouTube erroneously took down was a speech I filmed at the December Million MAGA March.

This documentary footage was licensed by BBC, had a story about it in Rolling Stone, and WAS USED IN THE IMPEACHMENT HEARING ITSELF.https://t.co/jTuGAs5SCZ pic.twitter.com/buWgYES2tf

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) March 4, 2021

The folks at @TeamYouTube sent this email to go with the three takedowns and account suspension.

They ban "misleading content that alleges widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S."

My content isn't misleading nor does it allege – it shows what happens. pic.twitter.com/tkXkXu79Ci

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) March 4, 2021

So, you have action items:

-Tweet @TeamYouTube telling them to lift the suspension on Ford Fischer's News2Share account.

-Demand that YouTube work *with* content creators to find solutions rather than use punitive measures against their content creators acting in good faith.

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) March 4, 2021

I wish this could be resolved privately, but @TeamYouTube seems to have no desire to constructively – rather than punitively – deal with perceived privacy violations.

I am therefore including a screenshot of my response email below. pic.twitter.com/64C1Q7KBhM

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) March 4, 2021

YouTube has generally been on a rampage of punishing my account for work so valuable, it was cited in the impeachment trial twice.

Following an article by @JosephWulfsohn, they partially reversed course before.

This is why speaking out works.https://t.co/5kzqq0p4iE

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) March 4, 2021

Just now, @TeamYouTube denies my appeal, upholding a suspension for a video in which several people confront a “religious” hate group.

They say it’s spam because of election disinfo; only reference is at 6 minutes in, one person on street screams he believes election was stolen. pic.twitter.com/K3eux1jwul

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) March 4, 2021

Big League Politics has reported on YouTube’s hostility toward any messages that may cause the masses to doubt the official globalist corporate narrative:

Dr. Scott Atlas, who has emerged as President Donald Trump’s most credible advisor on COVID-19 policy, is being censored by YouTube.

Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, has spoken out consistently against the mass hysteria surrounding COVID-19. YouTube recently censored a Hoover video in which he was speaking about the lies peddled by the medical establishment during the pandemic.

“They put in a lockdown… They did not calculate at all the harms of the lockdown, the consequences of the lockdown. They did a stop COVID 19 at all costs. They used hypothetical projection models that were so egregiously wrong, far, far off. Yet they keep citing those models,” Atlas said while appearing on Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson. The video is still available on the Hoover Institute website.

“All over the world, Switzerland, Iceland, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Asian countries, there is a minimal, if any, risk of children transmitting the disease, even to their parents. It’s not just that children are not at risk at all from this disease. They also do not even transmit the disease,” he continued.

“The science is really not science. It’s a fear-based and cherry-picking of certain studies. It’s very poor analysis. As I say many times, a lotta smart people are doing a lotta sloppy thinking,” Atlas added.

In addition to being targeted by Youtube, Fischer has also been targeted by other tech monopolies as well. Facebook has regularly stopped him from hosting his content on their platform for various reasons.

I am a journalist, verified on Facebook. Today I spent the entire day covering various armed groups throughout Louisville.

As I just finished a livestream, I tried to log in and it appears @Facebook deleted my account. pic.twitter.com/PRZohhzCxC

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) September 5, 2020

However, Fischer has shown that the tech giants will capitulate after enough public pressure, as he has had videos reinstated on the major platforms after being initially targeted by censorship measures.

While Facebook never informed me why this happened, this was my last post before Facebook deleted my account.

Presumably, @Facebook mistook me writing about gun violence as me somehow endorsing or participating in it.

Facebook needs to fix this.

Algorithms cannot judge humans. pic.twitter.com/09PkJqa4so

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) September 6, 2020

By targeting popular journalists with large followings such as Fischer, the Big Tech giants are making themselves increasingly loathed among the masses. The behavior of these tech monopolies is setting the stage for new regulations that will break up their stranglehold or market alternatives rising that will protect freedom of speech.