Decoding our Twitter chatter [WSJ]

Want to monitor an earthquake, track political activity or predict the ups and downs of the stock market? Researchers have found a bonanza of real-time data in the torrential flow of Twitter feeds.

When the magnitude 8.8 Chilean earthquake hit last year, researchers found that on Twitter the truth often won out over misinformation. "When a rumor is true, it spreads faster," said computer analyst Barbara Poblete at the University of Chile in Santiago.

Ms. Poblete and her colleagues analyzed how survivors of the earthquake used the messaging service in lieu of more conventional communications that had been knocked out. They discovered that in the crisis, Twitter crowds reflexively sorted facts from falsehoods, exercising a collective wisdom on the fly. She found enough measurable differences in language, citations and posting patterns to devise a way to assess the credibility of Twitter texts automatically, with an accuracy of about 70%.

"The network itself can provide a filter for valid information," Ms. Poblete said.

Full article: Decoding Our Twitter Chatter by Robert Lee Hotz at WSJ, 2011-10-01.

Image: Ars Technica.