Twitter is trying to tackle disinformation by joining hands with news providers
The year 2020 saw the widespread of Sars-Cov2-Virus and also witnessed the spread of misleading information that spreads faster than the virus. The novelty of the virus coupled with the overflow of information leads to this infodemic situation and is continuing.
We can forgive misinformation, as it may happen mistakenly. But that is not the case with disinformation. Disinformation is that misinformation created and spread deliberately to create controversies or chaos. Disinformation is dangerous; digital platforms like Twitter are pushing their limits to control its spread.
Hunt the bots
Bots are internet software applications that welcome you with greeting messages when you visit a website or a Facebook page or even spamming your WhatsApp. Originally bots were used for crawling information across the web. Thereby analyzing millions of files across the internet and giving you the required search result. Sounds familiar? Yes, that’s how you get your answers on Google or any search engine.
But as we know, technology is a double-edged sword; Cybercriminals started using bots to automate malicious attacks. Followed by marketing agencies that start exploiting bots to spam emails and messaging platforms. Today the news you read on the portal of your favorite media house was even written by an automated bot.
All said and done, the advantages of bot applications are many, particularly in automation. That is the reason why tech companies like Twitter and Facebook are providing platforms to build custom bots. But the same bots are catalyzing the spread of fake information – deliberately or unknowingly. There are millions of bots on social media posing as real accounts.
Social media platforms are trying their best to control the circulation of such information. They also remove the accounts of flagged bots. They even have a dedicated curation team to monitor misleading discussions and counter them. In this fight against disinformation, Twitter will collaborate with news providers Reuters and Associated Press. It is expected that this collaboration will speed up the debunking process of misleading content shared on Twitter thereby controlling the spread of fake news.
Like digital platforms, users play a significant role in spreading this disinformation. We must be responsible before sending each forward or retweets. Along with digital literacy, it is essential to teach our kit and kin about digital responsibility.
Next time encountering such ☝️ disinformation, beware and alert others!
But you know bots are good. You may even interact with a good bot powered by Sciteum soon:)
Written by M R Raghul
An engineer and a creative science communicator. Found his passion for science outreaches while traveling and interacting with kids.
Tech guy and the Co-founder of Sciteum!