Qatar experts design new app to identify Twitter rumors

Technology experts in Qatar and India have developed a new online application that rates the credibility of Twitter feeds, in a bid to stop people from spreading rumors online – particularly during major incidents.

TweetCred has been thought up by developers at Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) – a private, not-for-profit national research organization founded by Qatar Foundation – and Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Delhi, which has been collaborating on the project for the past six months.

The aim to to give people a way of sorting through their Twitter feed quickly, to help them identify credible information sources in times of national incidents and emergencies such as riots, public uprisings and earthquakes.

The new app, which can be downloaded for free as a Google Chrome extension, comes as Twitter becomes one of the main sources of breaking news and information for people in a crisis.

In Doha, for example, some 90 percent of residents rely on the internet for news, according to a 2013 Northwestern University in Qatar study on media usage in the MENA region. And some 43 percent of people surveyed in the country use Twitter.

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Qatar experts design new app to identify Twitter rumors