Have you noticed that every time a movie trailer comes out, the “topics” in Twitter spike? Twitter is now making it easier to see exactly which tweets are popular at any given moment. Today, when people share links with the #movie trailers hashtag, they also get a new set of trending topics to go with them.
As part of a trial to add more context to trending topics on Twitter, the company is testing three new features to see how they affect the way people use the service. One, which was released on Thursday, gives users more information about the posts that are currently trending. The second, which will be released later this month, will show users how many people are talking about a post. And the final feature, which Twitter plans to launch in October, will show users whether or not a tweet or hashtag has been a trending topic in the past and whether or not it is currently a trending topic.
Through a partnership with The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, Twitter is improving how it keeps users updated about current issues.
By collaborating with AP and Reuters, Twitter will be able to expand the scope and speed with which it delivers context to popular topics of discussion.
Twitter currently only describes top trends on a small scale. This is done by tagging the trend with additional information like a Twitter Moment, a single tweet, or a written description.
In a few crucial areas, Twitter hopes to improve the distribution of this information:
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- Scale: In the future, users should expect to see more contextual descriptions of Twitter trends.
- Speed: As new information regarding hot topics of discourse becomes available, it will be delivered in real time.
- When facts are in dispute, Twitter will be able to give accurate information thanks to our agreement.
- Trustworthiness: More links to reports from reputable sources will be supplied.
Twitter will also try to deliver information on topics before they become popular.
When a topic has the potential to generate false information, Twitter will endeavor to disseminate the facts before the false information spreads.
“Rather than waiting for anything to go viral, Twitter will contextualize emerging dialogue in real time or ahead of the public debate.”
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In September 2023, Twitter introduced explanations for trending topics for the first time. While they can be useful at times, they aren’t provided for all trends and aren’t updated in real time.
The issues with speed and scale are getting addressed by the AP & Reuters collaboration, as is another thing Twitter needs help with — factchecking.
Fact-checking viral web content takes a lot of time and effort, and Twitter lacks the tools to do so inside. Facebook, too, outsources fact-checking.
Currently, the curation team at Twitter is in charge of offering explanations to trending topics, and they lack the investigative journalistic expertise.
That’s where AP & Reuters come in. Now, Twitter has the resources on hand to get the facts out there before misinformation spreads too far.
AP and Reuters will concentrate on English-language information during the first phase of the program.
According to Twitter, these initiatives will expand over time in order to give support in a variety of languages and time zones around the world.
“When people come to Twitter to check what’s going on, we want to make sure they can access trustworthy information quickly. Twitter will be able to scale up and accelerate our efforts to deliver timely, authoritative context across the wide range of global subjects and conversations that take place every day on Twitter.”
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Twitter is the source of this information.
