Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) will avail all tweets to Massachusetts Institute of Technology research group to analyze how people use social media to share ideas and achieve shared goals. The team will then come up with a robust communication tool that can be used by people for social, civic, and political collaborations. The tool will also enable journalists, policy makers, and research experts to unearth new tendencies and public patterns.
The micro-blogging company has given out a total of $10 million to the institute’s researchers to work on the project over the next 5 years with the funding also spread over the same period. The team will use tweets and content from Reddit and other relevant social forums.
All the research will be carried out by selected expert researchers in a lab dubbed “Laboratory of Social Machines.”
This is however not the first time that Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is giving out funds for research and similar projects, but has been doing so under the “Twitter Data Grants;” although the project with MIT has secured more funding from the company due to its scope, nature, and attached importance.
Deb Roy, a chief media scientist at Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) will lead the LSM team. He is also an associate professor at the MIT Media Lab.
“The Laboratory for Social Machines will experiment in areas of public communication and social organization where humans and machines collaborate on problems that can’t be solved manually or through automation alone,”
said Roy.
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) said it hopes the researchers will be able to establish how people start movements by getting a more analytical understanding of how information spreads on the Twitter platform.
The laboratory is expected to partner with other entities, political and otherwise, that may be interested in utilizing new ways of collecting data or exchanging information with large groups of people.
This article has been written by Victor Ochieng.
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