Twitter Created a Snitching Tool Called 'Birdwatch'

Washington, D.C. — Twitter just created a snitching tool called “Birdwatch” in the wake of their controversial censorship and even banning of mainly conservative-leaning accounts.

Twitter recently banned former President Donald Trump, General Michael Flynn, and 70,000 accounts that tweeted information related to the QAnon conspiracy theory, among others. The social media company has labeled many more tweets as misinformation as well, primarily from prominent conservatives.

Now CEO Jack Dorsey wants you to snitch on these people for Twitter. A blog post from the company outlines how Birdwatch will work.

Birdwatch allows people to identify information in Tweets they believe is misleading and 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. Eventually we aim to make notes visible directly on Tweets for the global Twitter audience, when there is consensus from a broad and diverse set of contributors.
From Twitter

The risk, of course, is that of mob rule.

It is almost a certainty that Twitter users will organize and flag those they disagree with for spreading misinformation. This, in turn, will hurt their social credit on the platform. It applies to both sides of the political aisle, though liberal-leaning users will arguably hold a stark advantage.

Twitter claims it will focus on ensuring the snitching tool is not dominated by a simple majority, but I will believe it when I see it.

For instance, a review of nearly 170,000 tweets shows a Chinese state-affiliated silencing operation possibly targeted Daryl Morey over a pro-Hong Kong tweet that angered the Chinese Communist Party. Introducing a snitching tool such as Birdwatch only gives more power to operations such as the one likely conducted by China to silence opposition. If Twitter believes requiring a phone number to prove someone’s identity will stop the CCP from gaining access to (and abusing) the snitching tool, they are sorely mistaken.

The company plans to keep Birdwatch separate from the Twitter website and application while it is in the pilot phase.

The blog post also claims Twitter will provide full transparency, such as sharing the code for the snitching tool’s algorithms and making “all data contributed to Birdwatch” publicly available.

Welcome to the age of social credit in America.