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Ben Collins Profile picture
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25 Jan, 4 tweets, 2 min read
So @BrandyZadrozny and I got a peek under the hood of Twitter's new crowdsourced fact-checking forum. Some quick takeaways:

1 - They're trying to recapture the magic of Wikipedia, where a community emerged and protected the integrity of the site.
nbcnews.com/tech/social-me…
Twitter says their trials were promising, but it was a much smaller portion of people than the open internet, cordoned off from passerby trolls.

A slow rollout could help build a community and norms, and cut off bad actors. Not a guarantee, but it's possible.
The big thing I'm worried about with Birdwatch? Brigading.

Say one extremist forum REALLY hates one true tweet by a specific user. They all sign up en masse and drown out good info.

As this rolls out to more people, I didn't see defense against that.
nbcnews.com/tech/social-me…
Long term, Twitter wants to take the labeling of harmful lies out of the mouth of a faceless team at the company and give it to the community.

It could work. It's just going to take a ton of work setting up the infrastructure for a trustworthy community.

nbcnews.com/tech/social-me…

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Ben Collins Profile picture
25 Jan
NEW from me + @brandyzadrozny:

Twitter is launching a crowd-sourced fact-checking feature called Birdwatch.

It's their new effort to fight disinformation on the platform, and it feels a lot like Reddit and Wikipedia.
nbcnews.com/tech/social-me…
Birdwatch will, at first, be a separate place where users can discuss tweets that might contain disinfo on the platform.

The results will be cordoned off from Twitter to start, but that may change down the line.

nbcnews.com/tech/social-me…
Pretty much anybody can apply to be part of the trial for Twitter's new Birdwatch community, which they hope to roll out to more users if it works.

It won't just be fact-checkers and high-profile accounts, but you need to use a real email address.
nbcnews.com/tech/social-me…
Read 5 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
19 Jan
NEW from me:

Increasingly militant 'Parler refugees' and anxious QAnon adherents prep for doomsday

nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
QAnon followers largely believe tomorrow will be The Storm, or the mass execution of Democrats as Donald Trump becomes permanent president. They're buying ham radios and warning loved ones.

It's tearing families apart. I talked to one of them.

nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
Since the Capitol insurrection and Parler shutdown, white supremacists on Telegram have been sharing guides on how to radicalize "normie" Trump supporters.

Extremists call them "Parler refugees," and they're being redpilled in record time.

nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
Read 4 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
17 Jan
Over the last few years, I kept in touch with some QAnon supporters through DMs, checking in on them to see if they'd ever come out of it when their next doomsday came and went.

They'd typically first message me calling me a Satanic pedophile. I'd ignore it and ask questions.
Usually they would draw hard lines. A big one was D5, which everyone thought would be mass arrests on December 5th two years ago. Didn't happen, didn't matter.

It's about belief, anticipation, an advent calendar. One day soon, their problems would be fixed.
I would check in the week after the failed doomsdays. They'd point to a Q post like scripture, and say some ridiculous event proved it was still happening. An earthquake somewhere, a service interruption on GMail.

I learned something: these people don't want to be humiliated.
Read 7 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
13 Jan
People keep attempting to otherize QAnon adherents as inherently dumb, low class, and automatically mentally ill.

Radicalization can affect anyone, especially those longing for identity or answers in a difficult time.
We are at one of the hardest parts of this journey as a country: the future will demand empathy for the mildly radicalized, some of whom may sound crazed or vicious.

But it’s necessary. We’re going to have to be kind, and strong, to bring our friends and family back to reality.
A lot of people appropriately dunking on me for this tweet.

I'm talking about people who send you flat earth videos and viral rumors about upcoming "blackouts."

You cannot give an inch to white supremacy in any form, they will take a mile.
Read 5 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
12 Jan
NEW from me:

After social media ban, QAnon warnings of a 'blackout' move to viral text messages

nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
You might've received a text message from a loved one saying not to update your iPhone because it'll disable your Emergency Broadcasting System.

This is not remotely true. It's a QAnon conspiracy theory, and it's everywhere since the Parler shutdown.
nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
The viral text rumor is that you need to stock up on supplies because there's a "blackout" coming.

What your friend who texted you may not tell you is that this is a QAnon rumor, pushed by people who think Trump is about to take over the country.

nbcnews.com/tech/internet/… Image
Read 6 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
11 Jan
QAnon is the idea that a secret government insider is revealing Trump's secret war with child eaters in posts on 8kun.

You know it's him because he has a "tripcode," a de facto password, that allows only Q to post.

Most people get Q posts from aggregators and don't go to 8kun.
Q, himself, has not posted in over a month, since 12/8. Q's only posted three vague posts since the election.

QAnon is now effectively a decentralized movement, where believers rely on old Q posts, cite them like Bible verses, and rely on influencers to "decode" old ones.
It's unlikely that Q is one man or that Q is the same person as the one who posted the first time. Q has changed sites several times:

- from 4chan to 8chan after the password (matlock) leaked
- from 8chan to 8kun after 8chan was shut down for hosting white nationalist manifestos
Read 4 tweets

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