Users roast Twitter for its misguided 'birdwatch' misinformation initiative

Twitter on Monday announced "Birdwatch," a "community-driven" program to deal with "misleading information." The many responses Twitter users have given to it are very telling.

"Or... follow me here... people can discuss underneath a tweet by replying, and then those that agree can make a case as can those that disagree... you know kind of how it is now. Open discussions without a few people making decisions for everyone. Stop it already!"

"So basically a group of ideologically aligned people can get on here I am basically take down anything they don’t agree with"

"If your approach were taken in 2001, then masses of users would have silenced the correct alternative voices, and enforced the official position that Iraq was in possession of fissile material for nuclear weapons. You're weaponizing misinformed consensus."

Besides the obvious problems of the tyranny of the majority and of adhering to the collective desires of what could be summed up as one big bandwagon fallacy, users quickly pointed out the problems of potential abuse:

"Great, so with this I can buy 100,000 accounts at a clickfarm and essentially lord over every topic that is permissable."

The same user followed up with the following:

"Then you got one guy with a variety of independent-looking IPs who can both create and pretend to combat misleading information, while just taking everyone else along for the ride. Seems healthy."