The director of the DHS’ new Disinformation Governance Board Nina Jankowicz suggested that verified Twitter users, like her, should be allowed to edit the tweets of other users to “add context.”
She went on to say that Twitter had already verified “untrustworthy” users. If only trustworthy users like her were verified, the editing system would be effective, she believes.
“I am eligible for it because I’m verified, but there are a lot of people who shouldn’t be verified who aren’t, you know, legit, in my opinion. I mean, they are real people, but they’re not, you know, trustworthy,” she said about Twitter’s new Birdwatch feature, in a Zoom conversation prior to her becoming the head of the new DHS role.
“Anyway, so, verified people can essentially start to edit Twitter the same sort of way Wikipedia is, so they can add context to certain tweets.
“So, just as an easy example, not from any political standpoint, if President Trump were still on Twitter and tweeted a claim about voter fraud, someone could add context from one of the sixty lawsuits that went through the court, or something that an election official in one of the states said.
“Adding context, so that people have a fuller picture rather than just an individual claim on a tweet.”
Like many of her remarks and recommendations, the idea of verified users editing other users’ tweets was mocked.
