In a bid to prevent the spread of misinformation, Twitter has said that it will start broadcasting local TV news alongside the timeline during major breaking news events. A spokesperson for the company has confirmed that Twitter has rolled out this feature across its platform. The footage that will be aired online will be selected from local news stations that it will partner with.
Twitter put this new initiative in action yesterday when it streamed footage from Miami’s WSVN 7 for hours alongside the timelines of users in the United States. The new station was covering the school shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida’s Broward County.
“We’re continuing to work on new ways we can surface credible and relevant information to help people stay informed,” Twitter video GM Kayvon Beykpour confirmed to BuzzFeed News, adding that there’s no faster way to see what’s happening the world than pairing live video with tweets.
When users click on live videos that Twitter streams on their home timeline, they will be taken to a custom timeline which will surface algorithmically selected tweets about that particular news event.
Pairing the algorithmically selected tweets with feed from news stations that are covering the news event live will ensure that issues of exploitation that are common with algorithms can be minimized.
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