Though the new kid on the block, Twitter is already adding a new way to improve the overall accuracy and value of its Community Notes through a new qualifier that will require contributors to ‘unlock the ability to write Notes by first rating other Notes submitted in the app’. 

As Twitter explains: 

“Everyone who joins Community Notes can rate notes. They can unlock the ability to write notes by helping to identify helpful and unhelpful notes. To unlock the ability to write, new contributors need to earn a Rating Impact of at least 5.”

An Extra Note

Rating Impact relates to how often a contributor’s ratings helped the community identify notes which then went on to earn a status of ‘Helpful’ or ‘Not Helpful’ among the broader user group. Users are essentially incentivized to rate notes, ideally as early as possible, and rate them in a way that’s reflective of the way the Twitter community would also rate them. This should help weed out people looking to influence Community Notes with their own biases.

To add, there are also Writing Impact points for Community Notes creators, which are also rated based on audience feedback. If a creator fails to maintain a high enough Writing Impact rating, they’ll lose their ability to write Notes. A great incentive tool, but also a rather harsh one when a creator fails retention. Banning a creator from being able to write notes if they fail to reach a rating ‘quota’ makes it more of a setback rather than a boon in most cases. 

It seems that this system is being built to ensure that Community Notes participants are not outliers and that their ratings are viewed as helpful by the broader Twitter community. This, as noted, should help ensure that the system isn’t hijacked by people looking to advance a certain agenda; because if the majority of Twitter users don’t find your Notes useful, you lose the capacity to keep contributing. 

All in all, it’s a good update that should help maintain the quality of the notes submitted – though whether it will help to make the option a key moderation filter in the app remains to be seen. Community Notes have become a key focus for then-new Chief Twit Elon Musk, with the view being that these extra inputs submitted by Twitter users can provide another means to build a more seld-sustaining moderation process, enabling Twitter to be more hands-off with what people share in the app. This certainly aligned with Musk’s notion of free speech, at least to a degree.

The Wrap

So, will allowing people to say what they like, so long as they align with Twitter’s rules work? It certainly helps people get a better understanding of the issues at hand, and the accuracy of Tweeted remarks. It could be a helpful guide tool on divisive, and especially misleading remarks.

A lot of this depends on how active contributors are and how many Notes are included, which relates to how much impact they can have on slowing the spread of misinformation. Either way, it seems that only usage and time will tell us for sure just how effective Community Notes are.

Sources 

https://bit.ly/3WlGBKQ