Twitter’s crowdsourced fact-checking experiment reveals problems

On Feb. 5, Twitter flagged a post from controversial YouTuber Tim Pool that said the 2020 U.S. presidential election was rigged. The platform noted that the claim was disputed and turned off engagement “due to a risk of violence.”

But, on Birdwatch, the social media platform’s experiment in crowdsourced fact-checking, users overwhelmingly said the tweet was not misleading, according to a Feb. 14 analysis of Twitter data. And most Birdwatch users indicated in the tool that they found these notes that supported debunked claims helpful and informative.

“According to the officiating (sic) source of TIME there was a well organized group of secret participants in a shadow organization that sounds like a cabal that worked together to sway the election in favor of Joe Biden,” reads one note. While the user includes a link to a Time Magazine article that indeed uses words like “cabal” and “conspiracy,” the context of the piece — that powerful groups were working behind the scenes to protect election integrity — is lost.