Monday 7th March: Twitter wants to let users fact-check each other’s tweets

March 07, 2022

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Twitter has had the genius idea of expanding its fact-checking operation by allowing users to fact-check each others’ tweets. This instantly seems like a fantastically stupid notion given that, as Chris described it on this week's podcast, the quality of discourse on Twitter is often on par with a 'drunken 4 a.m. argument in a chip shop'.

But of course, the devil is in the details. Lifting the project out of the realm of takeaway talk-back, users will find helpful notes appended to tweets to offer context. These will 'ideally' come from an authoritative source (we're not sure who that might be) and they'll be rated for helpfulness, to determine whether to continue showing that note to others on Twitter.

I'm exhausted just thinking about the number of ways this whole idea can go spectacularly wrong. Yes, Twitter is doubling down on decentralisation and, yes, Twitter needs to do all it can to fix the problem of misinformation, but this just sounds bonkers.

We've heard about subscription fatigue for a long time, but Atlantic staff writer Amanda Mill has decided we've finally reached peak subscription. It's ironic reading this in a subscription success story like the Atlanic, but it highlights the problem of what Robbie Kellman Baxter calls 'bad subscriptions'. She says these come mostly from companies desperate to get on the subscription bandwagon, but without thinking about why that would be good for the customer.

According to Axios, Vox Media told employees last week that it plans to lay off about 60 people - 3% of its 2,000 employees - following the completion of its merger with Group Nine Media. The redundancies are down to 'duplicative roles' that needed to be eliminated at the senior level. Interestingly, the company has plans to hire in other areas.

The New Yorker has a deep dive on how social media aesthetics are shaping the way Ukrainians are documenting the Russian invasion. They ask, with civilians deploying their mobile cameras to document the invasion in granular detail, if it is a new form of citizen war journalism? Or is it 'just an invitation to keep clicking'?

This week's podcast:

This week we hear from Stephanie Mehta, CEO & Chief Content Officer of Manseuto Ventures, parent of Inc. and Fast Company. She talked about going from an editorial career to the CEO role, the changes in leadership attitudes to publishing over the last decade, and what the revenue models for Inc. and Fast Company look like post-pandemic.

I'll be at the Publishing Show on Wednesday 10th at 10.35am speaking to Anoosh Chakelian of the New Statesman and DC Thomson's Chris Phin about what it takes to make an award winning podcast. Use the discount code SPEAKERVIP to get a 100% discount on your delegate pass.