Twitter Inc on Monday announced a partnership with international news agencies Reuters and the Associated Press (AP) to provide more context to tweets and posts on the social network.
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The move comes as misinformation continues to spread rapidly across social media, especially Twitter, that is used widely as a source of quick daily news.
The microblogging platform will use insights from the agencies to verify and explain why a topic is trending and attach context in the form of a tweet or a short description. Through the partnership, people can expect more trends with contextual descriptions and links to reporting from trusted sources more frequently, Twitter noted in a statement.
Credible news from Reuters and AP will help Twitter contextualise developing discourse so that misinformation can be ruled out before it becomes viral, the company added.
The partnership will also support experimentation in existing products like Birdwatch, Twitter’s own tool to eliminate misleading tweets.
The focus will remain on English-language content in the initial phase of the programme, but will soon be expanded to other languages, Twitter said.