8 ms·

Who watches the Birdwatchers? Joke aside that's an experiment I can appreciate at least it will show us how bot invested and deranged twitter and it's users rea

Who watches the Birdwatchers? Joke aside that's an experiment I can appreciate at least it will show us how bot invested and deranged twitter and it's users really are. I actually thought it was launched months ago..

plazmatic 4y ago
thinkingemote 4y ago
You can download all the data apparently, so you could watch the birdwatchers! However although users get a permanent id it's not possible to get actual Twitter handles from these ids. So identification of who the birdwatchers are is not easy (wisely so)!
altacc 4y ago
From the page: "We believe regular people can valuably contribute to identifying and adding helpful context to potentially misleading information." That'll end well! ;) Problem is that on Twitter people aren't "regular", they're either seeking their own echo chamber for confirmation bias or the opposing echo chamber to insult, so crowd sourced feedback will simply be used as a tool for either of those.
- davedx 4y ago
  I dunno, Wikipedia is 100% based on regular contributors and it's turned out exceptionally well
  - blitzar 4y ago
    Wikipedia is not for profit, twitter is.
  - insickness 4y ago
    It doesn't work for controversial topics.
  - jfengel 4y ago
    It is, but it has the opposite issue. Wikipedia isn't a place for opinions and it doesn't portray itself as a "free speech zone". It easily rejects new information. Too easily, in that "notability" can bias it towards rejecting consequential but obscure historical figures, especially from people who were marginalized at the time. That's great for making Wikipedia safer from abject misinformation, which is a huge plus. It's less good at ongoing discoveries and news.
makomk 4y ago
Part of the reason this is gettting attention right now is that its users added a note to a White House tweet that was accurate, informative, and so politically embarassing they deleted the tweet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33472161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33472161 This is a tad different from the previous approach which involved third-party fact checkers that were, uh, visibly slanted towards the Democrats to put it lightly (and whenever a non-Democrat-aligned news source got blessed as a fact checker by a masjor social media network there was a major media storm over it).
- blamazon 4y ago
  - GameOfFrowns 4y ago
    >There is an expression of speech: 'reality has a documented liberal bias.' There is also another popular expression: 'Get woke, go broke.'
    - blamazon 4y ago
      First I've heard that one - trying to take it at face value, is the thesis that truth, equity, justice, etc should (must?) be discarded or suppressed if there is money to be made in the short term?
      - jimmygrapes 4y ago
        It's more like: focusing the marketing or intended audience of product on the smallest viable minority of potential customers with the intentional exclusion and or derision of other potential customers is not generally a profitable marketing strategy. Exceptions that prove the rule are those that focus on exclusivity or rarity, such as products that truly only are needed/desired by a niche audience but at a higher cost to make up for the lack of broad appeal/availability. Movies and TV shows (about which the "get woke, go broke" saying originated) don't fall under that sort of exclusivity-at-a-higher-price concept. Intentionally alienating 80% of your customer base to appeal to 20% is a risky strategy.
iudqnolq 4y ago
Notably yesterday a birdwatcher added a note to one of Elon's tweets, and then later the explanation was removed. They do use opaque algorithms that take other birdwatchers' feedback and decide whether to keep a note. Of course, many immediately suspected Elon had it manually removed. Regardless of whether he actually did it I think this is a fatal flaw that will prevent birdwatch from ever being trusted.
- merely-unlikely 4y ago
  Are you talking about this one?[1] I see the fact check still there. [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588538640401018880?s=46&t=v683SlxqjljgAcF8WU2GDA https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588538640401018880?s=46...
- BryantD 4y ago
  I am a member of the Birdwatch program. The note wasn't removed. It's still visible as a potential note; it just dropped below the threshold necessary for general display. This is not common but it's not abnormal either; it happened to one of my notes on a controversial topic.

plazmatic 4y ago

thinkingemote 4y ago

You can download all the data apparently, so you could watch the birdwatchers! However although users get a permanent id it's not possible to get actual Twitter handles from these ids. So identification of who the birdwatchers are is not easy (wisely so)!

altacc 4y ago

From the page: "We believe regular people can valuably contribute to identifying and adding helpful context to potentially misleading information." That'll end well! ;) Problem is that on Twitter people aren't "regular", they're either seeking their own echo chamber for confirmation bias or the opposing echo chamber to insult, so crowd sourced feedback will simply be used as a tool for either of those.

davedx 4y ago
I dunno, Wikipedia is 100% based on regular contributors and it's turned out exceptionally well
- blitzar 4y ago
  Wikipedia is not for profit, twitter is.
- insickness 4y ago
  It doesn't work for controversial topics.
- jfengel 4y ago
  It is, but it has the opposite issue. Wikipedia isn't a place for opinions and it doesn't portray itself as a "free speech zone". It easily rejects new information. Too easily, in that "notability" can bias it towards rejecting consequential but obscure historical figures, especially from people who were marginalized at the time. That's great for making Wikipedia safer from abject misinformation, which is a huge plus. It's less good at ongoing discoveries and news.

makomk 4y ago

Part of the reason this is gettting attention right now is that its users added a note to a White House tweet that was accurate, informative, and so politically embarassing they deleted the tweet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33472161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33472161 This is a tad different from the previous approach which involved third-party fact checkers that were, uh, visibly slanted towards the Democrats to put it lightly (and whenever a non-Democrat-aligned news source got blessed as a fact checker by a masjor social media network there was a major media storm over it).

blamazon 4y ago
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  >There is an expression of speech: 'reality has a documented liberal bias.' There is also another popular expression: 'Get woke, go broke.'
  - blamazon 4y ago
    First I've heard that one - trying to take it at face value, is the thesis that truth, equity, justice, etc should (must?) be discarded or suppressed if there is money to be made in the short term?
    - jimmygrapes 4y ago
      It's more like: focusing the marketing or intended audience of product on the smallest viable minority of potential customers with the intentional exclusion and or derision of other potential customers is not generally a profitable marketing strategy. Exceptions that prove the rule are those that focus on exclusivity or rarity, such as products that truly only are needed/desired by a niche audience but at a higher cost to make up for the lack of broad appeal/availability. Movies and TV shows (about which the "get woke, go broke" saying originated) don't fall under that sort of exclusivity-at-a-higher-price concept. Intentionally alienating 80% of your customer base to appeal to 20% is a risky strategy.

iudqnolq 4y ago

Notably yesterday a birdwatcher added a note to one of Elon's tweets, and then later the explanation was removed. They do use opaque algorithms that take other birdwatchers' feedback and decide whether to keep a note. Of course, many immediately suspected Elon had it manually removed. Regardless of whether he actually did it I think this is a fatal flaw that will prevent birdwatch from ever being trusted.

merely-unlikely 4y ago
Are you talking about this one?[1] I see the fact check still there. [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588538640401018880?s=46&t=v683SlxqjljgAcF8WU2GDA https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588538640401018880?s=46...
BryantD 4y ago
I am a member of the Birdwatch program. The note wasn't removed. It's still visible as a potential note; it just dropped below the threshold necessary for general display. This is not common but it's not abnormal either; it happened to one of my notes on a controversial topic.