- Community Notes are changing on X (formerly Twitter), with the social media platform now requiring accounts to share sources too when posting.
- The decision has been implemented as a way to better control misinformation on X.
- X believes that, “the overall impact of this change will be positive”.
There has been a key change to the way that Community Notes will work on X (formerly Twitter) moving forward.
With misinformation more rife than ever on the platform as a result of the Israel-Hamas conflict, X has seemingly taken the step to require accounts and users to supply sources with links should they wish to post a Community Note.
The change was communicated via X’s official Community Notes account this week, noting that the change takes effect from today.
“Notes that cite sources have a much higher likelihood of earning a ‘Helpful’ status. This is not surprising, as sources make notes more easily verifiable by viewers and raters. Starting today, sources are now required for proposed notes,” the post explained.
“We haven’t previously required this, as some helpful notes inherently do not need sources – for example, they refer to details of the post or media it contains. But those instances are less common, and we believe the overall impact of this change will be positive. Sources will not be required for notes explaining why added context isn’t needed,” it added.
While X has now given users more legwork to do on a feature that was for all intents and purposes crowdsourced, as Wired pointed out earlier this week, Community Notes have been equally manipulated as they have been helpful in the wake of the aforementioned conflict.
It will be interesting to see whether this new change will indeed have the impact that X is hoping for. Given that the platform has recently implemented paid verifications, altered its algorithm to amplify posts from paying subscribers, and has to date taken no tangible steps to address misinformation on its site.
“Like all our product updates, we’ll monitor the impact of this change and continue to improve based on what we learn,” the post concluded.
