WEBVTT

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let's say you're on the website formerly known as Twitter statistically most of

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you aren't but let's pretend you're Doom scrolling as usual when suddenly you

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spot a post claiming that ancient aliens are living in bunkers beneath the

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Pyramids of Giza and they haven't paid rent in nearly 12,000 years but then

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right underneath it you spot a little window that says there actually aren't

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any bunkers underneath the pyramids alongside a link to a Wikipedia article

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on squatter's rights this little note stuck onto the bottom of a post like a

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little um actually Barnacle is what EXC

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likes to call a community note and it might just be the future of social media

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moderation social media platforms are under serious pressure to control the

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spread of misinformation by governments by investors by their own users this

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puts companies in the awkward position of having to be the Arbiters of what is

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and isn't factual reality and what is

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and isn't acceptable speech some of those cases are going to be pretty

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clearcut the Earth isn't flat and you can't threaten to kill people but

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there's also going to be a lot of ambigu that's where Community notes comes in

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it's a genius feature that lets X delegate responsibility for factchecking

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onto its user base but also allows the users to build their own consensus as a

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community in a mostly polite Democratic manner without top- down sensorship

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Community notes were first added as a uson feature in January 2021 under the

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original name of bird watch everything was better before it was rebranded and

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expanded in November 2022 shortly after the site fell under new management the

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primary goal of the future is to combat misinformation both intentional and

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unintentional by crowdsourcing factchecking through Anonymous

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volunteers when normal people encounter a post that lacks context they get to be

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mad or misled and move on but users approved as Community notes contributors

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have a third option a button that lets them add an asterisk to any misleading

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post the user will then be asked to specify why they think the post needs a

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note whether it's misleading inaccurate outdated satirical in a way that might

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go over many people's heads Etc the contributor will be encouraged to add a

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link to a reliable source backing their counter claim then that proposed note

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appears on the community notes dashboard of other contributors who vote on

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whether or not it's helpful contributors may even decide to write a counter

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counter claim on that proposed Community note explaining why it's inaccurate or

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irrelevant and encouraging other contributors to vote against it to be

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clear and this is actually where it gets interesting this is not a simple

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majority system where whichever note gets the most votes wins a note needs to

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hit a certain threshold of supporting votes and those votes need to show a

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general consensus among contributors who typically disagree with each other this

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encourages contributors to stick to the facts and cite reliable sources when

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writing a note it also makes it a lot harder for a partisan group to dog pile

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on a post and fact check it with their own personal opinion this kind of system

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is Prim primarily attractive to two kinds of people people with strong

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opinions and nitpickers who like to be right but it's balanced in such a way to

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disadvantage the opinionated and place nitpickers in the position of King maker

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unfortunately many Rank and file normal people users don't understand how

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Community notes Works which can lead to anger and mistrust of the future people

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often perceive Community notes as coming from Twitter or attribute them

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personally to Elon Musk despite the fact that musk himself is a frequent

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recipient of its fact checks others view the voting system as rigged because they

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don't trust Twitter as an institution worse as more and more people see and

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vote on a note it might appear and disappear as it falls above and below

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the threshold to be seen by all users leading to the perception that a

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correction has been suspiciously removed by the powers that be likewise it can be

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sometimes hard to fact check controversial figures with a passionate

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parasocial fan base who are willing to vote down perfectly reasonable

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criticisms plus the contrib twit panel isn't all that visually distinct from

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the rest of Twitter so some participants will take and post screenshots of sick

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dunks they've submitted as Community notes leading to the perception that

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this kind of petty squabbling is what's actually getting put on people's posts

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it's not but perhaps the biggest concern with Community notes is that they

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demonetize any post that they're applied to with the idea being to disincentivize

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for-profit disinformation like celebrity death hoaxes or conspiracy Mills the

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problem is that demonetization doesn't take into account why the note was

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written in the first place whether it was a correction an update or even just

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additional context but these are mostly minor issues specific to X's

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implementation of community notes the deeper question is whether this is a

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principally good concept that we should try to implement elsewhere pretty much

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all social media companies use a mixture of algorithmic filtering and user

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reports to fly potential problem posts which are then either automatically

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hidden or sent to a human moderator for a manual review that last step however

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is often optional even with thousands and thousands of moderators working

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around the clock there's just too much content to sift through this can result

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in both over and under moderation as rules get applied unevenly and often

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without human oversight notable examples include tumblr's notorious Crackdown on

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adult material which included a ban on female presenting nipples and a

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moderation algorithm so aggressive it would flag any picture with a large

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amount of beige or flesh tones as new

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which is bad news for fans of Dune so what could happen if we add Community

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note style consensus mechanisms to this conventional system we'll explore that

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cic.gc.ca to Miriam Webster's opinion on the origin of the word Riz but you don't

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necessarily want their opinion on Taylor Swift's love life stay in your lane

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Miriam by contrast Community notes contributors are wholly Anonymous and

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might lack any relevant expertise in the subject they're assessing the only

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Authority Community notes has is built onto the public perception that it is a

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well- constructed system that creates good results it does have its own

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advantages however in that it's a lot faster and has a much higher capacity

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than traditional fact Checkers who typically have to f focus on the most important potential inaccuracies that's

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why you get a lot of traditional factchecking for National politicians

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but relatively little factchecking for local politicians who probably lie just

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as often there's also a known problem where after the fact Corrections rarely

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have the same verality in reach as the initial incorrect claim because they're

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just not nearly as exciting or interesting George Clooney got married

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to his own clone oops sorry no he didn't Community notes however can at least

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stem the tide of a frequently repeated misconception because because they're

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directly attached to the post making the original claim and can be easily spread

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to copycat posts through the efforts of a few diligent community members these

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Corrections are then immediately available to Anyone who reads these posts rather than buried deep in the

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comments Community notes contributors can even magnify information from

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traditional factchecking sources simply by linking to it we can think of these

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two systems as being analogous to traditional academic sources and

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crowdsource information like Wikipedia one of them is good enough to go in an

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essay while the other is at least good enough for social media Community notes

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is also a better supplement than a replacement for standard moderation

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practices because it creates a middle ground that allows a platform to operate

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with a gentler hand rather than always reaching for the banhammer or more

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likely on elon's X doing nothing it's potentially a problem for public

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discourse when important figures say offensive inaccurate or controversial

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things and those comments are removed rather than preserved and corrected it's

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also a known fact that many idea started out controversial so we should at least

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try to be careful about which ideas we say aren't even worth hearing Community

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note style fact cheing allows contrarians to at least speak their

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minds there are also clear benefits to a system of user participation that

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balances the power of individual contributors rather than allowing them

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to consolidate power and act as Petty leege Lords over their own little

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subdomains the way that Forum style platforms like Reddit do those some of

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those mods man so now what do you think how would you improve a feature like

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this what platforms would you add collaborative factchecking features to

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should participation be financially incentivized or rewarded this is free

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labor after all thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our other videos

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like this one on whether streaming is basically becoming cable and don't

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forget to subscribe and follow and mail me a letter don't do that