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From organising protests in oppressed countries to sharing viral videos and jokes: People use Twitter to share pretty much everything.

And now the Californian company has given $10 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to study exactly how the public uses Twitter to achieve different shared goals.

It is hoped that the research will help experts understand how messages spread online and the origins of rumours and ideas.

Twitter has given $10 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to study exactly how the public uses Twitter to achieve different shared goals. A screen shot of the popular website is pictured

Over the next five years, the university's researchers will analyse a vast quantity of content from Twitter, Reddit and other online forums to build new communication tools that journalists, policy experts and researchers can use to uncover new patterns and trends.

The new MIT lab is called the Laboratory of Social Machines.

Scientists will access data from Gnip, a Twitter-owned website that stores a vast database of historic tweets.

It is hoped that the research will help experts understand how messages spread online and the origins of rumours and ideas. Here, a group of protestors share videos and news to social media sites in New York City

Twitter is keen to better understand its users and has previously awarded smaller sums of funding to academic institutions in a programme known as Twitter Data Grants. But the MIT grant is significant due to its size and scope.

There is an 'openendness' to the research, said Deb Roy, an associate professor at MIT's Media Lab.

He said that he has a close relationship with Twitter, in part because his former company Bluefin Labs was acquired by the San Francisco-based company in 2013.

'Twitter has a special role to play in this concept of social change,' Professor Roy said.

Over five years, the university's researchers will organise a vast quantity of content from Twitter, Reddit and other online forums to build new communication tools that journalists, policy experts and researchers can use to uncover new patterns and trends. A stock image of a man using social media is pictured

He hopes to understand how far certain messages travel online, and the origins of rumours, opinions and ideas.

The research could yield new tools for the press as well as people working on 'gender equality and speech in the public sphere,' he  explained.

Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo said: 'Twitter is seizing the opportunity to go deeper into research to understand the role Twitter and other platforms play in the way people communicate, the effect that rapid and fluid communication can have and apply those findings to complex societal issues.'

A Twitter spokeswoman said the company plans to invest more funding into academic research and stressed that the data will not be traced back to individual users.

The research could yield new tools for the press as well as people working on 'gender equality and speech in the public sphere,' Professor Roy said. Protesters in  Cairo used Twitter and other tools to organise protests in Tahir Square (pictured), which played a role in the uprising of 2011