Biotech entrepreneur slams Twitter's new community driven program to combat misleading information
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy argues Twitter is delegating ‘dirty work’ to its own users, ‘who now are not going to debate each other, but are going to try to cancel one another,’ which he says is ‘incredibly divisive.’
Biotech entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy slammed Twitter Wednesday after the social media giant announced their plans to implement a new anti-disinformation system operated by users, known as Birdwatch.
Speaking on Fox & Friends, Ramaswamy alleged that the purging of Twitter accounts and the permanent suspension of former President Donald Trump was only the first step in Twitter’s ‘plan’ to do the ‘dirty work’ that the left wing of Congress could not do under the Constitution to censor conservatives.
REPUBLICANS SLAM TWITTER'S CROWDSOURCED FACT-CHECKING PROGRAM 'BIRDWATCH'
The Roivant Sciences CEO went on to explain that he believes step two is Birdwatch. He said having users provide ‘context’ to posts, as Twitter describes it, is actually a way for people to "not debate each other, but to cancel each other."
"These policies are changing every day on the fly. ... They censor Trump, they censor conservatives on the fly," Ramaswamy said, calling it "arbitrary rule-making on a day-to-day basis."
He went on to criticize Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for operating a ‘corporate monarchy", changing terms and conditions and Twitter rules on the fly and moving toward "cancel culture on steroids" by way of the new system.
Twitter issued a Tuesday statement about Birdwatch, which they plan to roll out as a beta test to one thousand United States users this week.
A Twitter spokesperson wrote yesterday, "The reason we’re pursuing Birdwatch is because we’ve heard people say that context may be more impactful when it comes from the community rather than Twitter or any singular institution. Our hope is to provide a dedicated channel for these types of contributions people are already making through their own replies."
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
The company said Birdwatch gives the ability to provide ‘context’ on tweets to users themselves, allowing them to identify tweets and information they believe is misleading or false by adding annotations directly to the tweet, outside of the standard reply function.
With Birdwatch, no singular tweet is exempt from being annotated on, with other Twitter accounts able to cite source materials from journals, other news sources and elected officials as a rebuttal.
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Get a daily look at what’s developing in science and technology throughout the world.