1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,240 Let's say you're on the website formerly known as Twitter. Statistically, most of you aren't, but let's pretend. 2 00:00:05,240 --> 00:00:10,280 You're doom-scrolling, as usual, when suddenly you spot a post claiming that ancient aliens 3 00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:14,080 are living in bunkers beneath the pyramids of Giza and they haven't paid rent in nearly 4 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:19,320 12,000 years. But then, right underneath it, you spot a little window that says there actually aren't 5 00:00:19,320 --> 00:00:23,760 any bunkers underneath the pyramids, alongside a link to a Wikipedia article on Squatter's 6 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:29,560 rights. The note stuck onto the bottom of a post, like a little, um, actually barnacle, is what 7 00:00:29,560 --> 00:00:32,640 X-Corp likes to call a community note. 8 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:36,400 And it might just be the future of social media moderation. 9 00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:40,280 Social media platforms are under serious pressure to control the spread of misinformation 10 00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:44,020 by governments, by investors, by their own users. 11 00:00:44,020 --> 00:00:48,240 This puts companies in the awkward position of having to be the arbiters of what is and 12 00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:53,280 isn't factual reality and what is and isn't acceptable speech. 13 00:00:53,280 --> 00:00:58,800 Some of those cases are going to be pretty clear-cut. The earth isn't flat, and you can't threaten to kill people, but there's also going to 14 00:00:58,800 --> 00:01:03,200 be a lot of ambiguity. That's where Community Notes comes in. 15 00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:07,200 It's a genius feature that lets ex-delegate responsibility for fact-checking onto its 16 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:13,000 user base, but also allows the users to build their own consensus as a community in a mostly 17 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:17,000 polite, democratic manner without top-down censorship. 18 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:21,320 Community Notes were first added as a US-only feature in January 2021 under the original 19 00:01:21,320 --> 00:01:29,800 name of Birdwatch. It was rebranded and expanded in November 2022, shortly after the site fell under New 20 00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:36,360 Management. The primary goal of the feature is to combat misinformation, both intentional and unintentional, 21 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:39,840 by crowdsourcing fact-checking through anonymous volunteers. 22 00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:44,760 When normal people encounter a post that lacks context, they get to be mad or misled and 23 00:01:44,760 --> 00:01:50,840 move on, but users approved as Community Notes contributors have a third option, a button 24 00:01:50,880 --> 00:01:54,400 that lets them add an asterisk to any misleading post. 25 00:01:54,400 --> 00:01:59,160 The user will then be asked to specify why they think the post needs a note, whether 26 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:04,200 it's misleading, inaccurate, outdated, satirical in a way that might go over many people's 27 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:10,720 heads, etc. The contributor will be encouraged to add a link to a reliable source backing their counterclaim. 28 00:02:10,720 --> 00:02:15,880 Then, that proposed note appears on the Community Notes dashboard of other contributors who 29 00:02:15,880 --> 00:02:23,200 vote on whether or not it's helpful. Users may even decide to write a counterclaim on that proposed Community Note, explaining 30 00:02:23,200 --> 00:02:28,480 why it's inaccurate or irrelevant, and encouraging other contributors to vote against it. 31 00:02:28,480 --> 00:02:32,680 To be clear, and this is actually where it gets interesting, this is not a simple majority 32 00:02:32,680 --> 00:02:36,480 system where whichever note gets the most votes wins. 33 00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:40,800 A note needs to hit a certain threshold of supporting votes, and those votes need to 34 00:02:40,800 --> 00:02:45,960 show a general consensus among contributors who typically disagree with each other. 35 00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:50,520 This encourages contributors to stick to the facts and cite reliable sources when writing 36 00:02:50,520 --> 00:02:55,960 a note. It also makes it a lot harder for a partisan group to dog pile on a post and fact check 37 00:02:55,960 --> 00:03:03,080 it with their own personal opinion. This kind of system is primarily attractive to two kinds of people, people with strong 38 00:03:03,080 --> 00:03:08,760 opinions and nitpickers who like to be right, but it's balanced in such a way to disadvantage 39 00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:13,280 the opinionated and placed nitpickers in the position of kingmaker. 40 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:17,680 Unfortunately, many rank and file normal people users don't understand how Community 41 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:21,960 Notes works, which can lead to anger and mistrust of the feature. 42 00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:26,000 People often perceive Community Notes as coming from Twitter, or attribute them personally 43 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:31,280 to Elon Musk, despite the fact that Musk himself is a frequent recipient of its fact checks. 44 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:35,520 Others view the voting system as rigged, because they don't trust Twitter as an institution. 45 00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:40,800 Worse, as more and more people see and vote on a note, it might appear and disappear, 46 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:45,480 as it falls above and below the threshold to be seen by all users, leading to the perception 47 00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:50,080 that a correction has been suspiciously removed by the powers that be. 48 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:54,840 Likewise, it can be sometimes hard to fact check controversial figures with a passionate 49 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:59,000 parasocial fanbase who are willing to vote down perfectly reasonable criticisms. 50 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:02,960 Plus, the contributor panel isn't all that visually distinct from the rest of Twitter, 51 00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:07,240 so some participants will take and post screenshots of sick dunks they've submitted as Community 52 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:11,600 Notes, leading to the perception that this kind of petty squabbling is what's actually 53 00:04:11,600 --> 00:04:14,760 getting put on people's posts. It's not. 54 00:04:14,760 --> 00:04:19,600 But perhaps the biggest concern with Community Notes is that they demonetize any posts that 55 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:24,800 they're applied to, with the idea being to disincentivize for-profit disinformation 56 00:04:24,800 --> 00:04:28,120 like celebrity death hoaxes or conspiracy mills. 57 00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:32,120 The problem is that demonetization doesn't take into account why the note was written 58 00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:37,220 in the first place, whether it was a correction, an update, or even just additional context. 59 00:04:37,220 --> 00:04:42,740 But these are mostly minor issues specific to X's implementation of Community Notes. 60 00:04:42,740 --> 00:04:47,900 The deeper question is whether this is a principally good concept that we should try to implement 61 00:04:47,900 --> 00:04:52,860 elsewhere. Pretty much all social media companies use a mixture of algorithmic filtering and user 62 00:04:52,860 --> 00:04:57,940 reports to fly potential problem posts, which are then either automatically hidden or sent 63 00:04:57,940 --> 00:05:00,940 to a human moderator for a manual review. 64 00:05:00,940 --> 00:05:07,140 That last step, however, is often optional. Even with thousands and thousands of moderators working around the clock, there's just 65 00:05:07,140 --> 00:05:15,180 too much content to sift through. This can result in both over and under moderation, as rules get applied unevenly and often without 66 00:05:15,180 --> 00:05:21,180 human oversight. Notable examples include tumblers, notorious crackdown on adult material, which included 67 00:05:21,180 --> 00:05:25,420 a ban on female presenting nipples, and a moderation algorithm so aggressive it would 68 00:05:25,420 --> 00:05:31,220 flag any picture with a large amount of beige or flesh tones as nudity, which is bad news 69 00:05:31,220 --> 00:05:37,980 for fans of doom. So what could happen if we add Community Notes-style consensus mechanisms to this conventional 70 00:05:37,980 --> 00:05:42,780 system? Rather than viewing Community Notes as a full replacement for traditional fact-checking 71 00:05:42,780 --> 00:05:47,940 or social media moderation, it's probably better to think of it as a complementary tool. 72 00:05:47,940 --> 00:05:52,300 One of the advantages of traditional fact-checking is that it's typically coming from an established 73 00:05:52,300 --> 00:05:59,660 authority with a known identity. Users can thus assess the credibility of a correction based on the reputation and relevance 74 00:05:59,660 --> 00:06:05,380 of its source. You might pay attention to Miriam Webster's opinion on the origin of the word Riz, but 75 00:06:05,380 --> 00:06:08,660 you don't necessarily want their opinion on Taylor Swift's love life. 76 00:06:08,660 --> 00:06:14,340 Stay in your lane, Miriam. By contrast, Community Notes consumers are wholly anonymous and might lack any relevant 77 00:06:14,340 --> 00:06:20,900 expertise in the subject they're assessing. The only authority Community Notes has is built onto the public perception that it is 78 00:06:20,900 --> 00:06:24,040 a well-constructed system that creates good results. 79 00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:28,020 It does have its own advantages, however, in that it's a lot faster and has a much 80 00:06:28,020 --> 00:06:32,540 higher capacity than traditional fact-checkers who typically have to focus on the most important 81 00:06:32,540 --> 00:06:38,700 potential inaccuracies. That's why you get a lot of traditional fact-checking for national politicians, but relatively little 82 00:06:38,700 --> 00:06:41,860 fact-checking for local politicians who probably lie just as often. 83 00:06:41,860 --> 00:06:45,780 There's also a known problem where after the fact corrections rarely have the same 84 00:06:45,780 --> 00:06:50,660 virality in reach as the initial incorrect claim, because they're just not nearly as 85 00:06:50,660 --> 00:06:54,900 exciting or interesting. George Clooney got married to his own clone. 86 00:06:55,180 --> 00:07:01,300 Oops, sorry, no he didn't. Community Notes, however, can at least stem the tide of a frequently repeated misconception 87 00:07:01,300 --> 00:07:05,380 because they're directly attached to the post making the original claim and can be easily 88 00:07:05,380 --> 00:07:10,280 spread to copycat posts through the efforts of a few diligent community members. 89 00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:14,220 These corrections are then immediately available to anyone who reads these posts rather than 90 00:07:14,220 --> 00:07:19,380 buried deep in the comments. Community Notes contributors can even magnify information from traditional fact-checking 91 00:07:19,380 --> 00:07:25,380 sources simply by linking to it. We can think of these two systems as being analogous to traditional academic sources 92 00:07:25,380 --> 00:07:31,540 and crowdsource information like Wikipedia. One of them is good enough to go in an essay, while the other is at least good enough for 93 00:07:31,540 --> 00:07:36,860 social media. Community Notes is also a better supplement than a replacement for standard moderation 94 00:07:36,860 --> 00:07:42,060 practices because it creates a middle ground that allows a platform to operate with a gentler 95 00:07:42,060 --> 00:07:49,420 hand rather than always reaching for the band hammer or, more likely on ELOXX, doing nothing. 96 00:07:49,420 --> 00:07:53,980 It's potentially a problem for public discourse when important figures say offensive, inaccurate 97 00:07:53,980 --> 00:07:59,900 or controversial things and those comments are removed rather than preserved and corrected. 98 00:07:59,900 --> 00:08:04,100 It's also a known fact that many good ideas started out controversial, so we should at 99 00:08:04,100 --> 00:08:08,580 least try to be careful about which ideas we say aren't even worth hearing. 100 00:08:08,580 --> 00:08:12,580 Community Notes style fact-checking allows contrarians to at least speak their minds. 101 00:08:12,580 --> 00:08:16,960 There are also clear benefits to a system of user participation that balances the power 102 00:08:16,960 --> 00:08:21,500 of individual contributors rather than allowing them to consolidate power and act as petty 103 00:08:21,500 --> 00:08:26,780 liege lords over their own little subdomains, the way that forum style platforms like Reddit 104 00:08:26,780 --> 00:08:30,420 do. Some of those mods, man. So now, what do you think? 105 00:08:30,420 --> 00:08:36,020 How would you improve a feature like this? What platforms would you add collaborative fact-checking features to? 106 00:08:36,020 --> 00:08:39,100 Should participation be financially incentivized or rewarded? 107 00:08:39,100 --> 00:08:45,060 This is free labor after all. Thanks for watching guys, like, dislike, check out our other videos like this one on whether 108 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:50,320 streaming is basically becoming cable and don't forget to subscribe and follow and mail 109 00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:52,200 me a letter. Don't do that.