Twitter joins forces with AP and Reuters to fight fake news

Twitter is partnering with The Associated Press and Reuters to proactively provide context and background information to tweets in an effort to curb the spread of disinformation and fake news. Initially, it only concerns English tweets.

In a blog post Twitter writes about the partnership with AP and Reuters that it hopes to be able to discover disinformation at an early stage. That has to happen before the information goes viral. Twitter says it does not have the expertise in-house to make a judgment about whether facts are correct or not. The news agencies will help with this, including in the Trending section of Twitter. Initially, the collaboration only concerns English-language messages.

Among other things, AP and Reuters will proactively provide context on topics that circulate quickly on Twitter, and where the risk of disinformation is high. With input from the news agencies, messages receive an accompanying text box with links to reliable information on a topic. “Instead of waiting for something to go viral, Twitter will provide context as the conversation develops or before it becomes a public discussion,” the network wrote.

Twitter will also process the feedback from Reuters and AP in bird watch, Twitter’s community-driven disinformation tool. AP and Reuters content gives users of the Birdwatch community access to trusted news sources that they can tick for context to a topic.