WEBVTT 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. 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:10.280 You're doom-scrolling, as usual, when suddenly you spot a post claiming that ancient aliens 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 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 00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:23.760 any bunkers underneath the pyramids, alongside a link to a Wikipedia article on Squatter's 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 00:00:29.560 --> 00:00:32.640 X-Corp likes to call a community note. 00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:36.400 And it might just be the future of social media moderation. 00:00:36.400 --> 00:00:40.280 Social media platforms are under serious pressure to control the spread of misinformation 00:00:40.280 --> 00:00:44.020 by governments, by investors, by their own users. 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 00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:53.280 isn't factual reality and what is and isn't acceptable speech. 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 00:00:58.800 --> 00:01:03.200 be a lot of ambiguity. That's where Community Notes comes in. 00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:07.200 It's a genius feature that lets ex-delegate responsibility for fact-checking onto its 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 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:17.000 polite, democratic manner without top-down censorship. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:21.320 Community Notes were first added as a US-only feature in January 2021 under the original 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 00:01:29.800 --> 00:01:36.360 Management. The primary goal of the feature is to combat misinformation, both intentional and unintentional, 00:01:36.360 --> 00:01:39.840 by crowdsourcing fact-checking through anonymous volunteers. 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 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:50.840 move on, but users approved as Community Notes contributors have a third option, a button 00:01:50.880 --> 00:01:54.400 that lets them add an asterisk to any misleading post. 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 00:01:59.160 --> 00:02:04.200 it's misleading, inaccurate, outdated, satirical in a way that might go over many people's 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. 00:02:10.720 --> 00:02:15.880 Then, that proposed note appears on the Community Notes dashboard of other contributors who 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 00:02:23.200 --> 00:02:28.480 why it's inaccurate or irrelevant, and encouraging other contributors to vote against it. 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 00:02:32.680 --> 00:02:36.480 system where whichever note gets the most votes wins. 00:02:36.480 --> 00:02:40.800 A note needs to hit a certain threshold of supporting votes, and those votes need to 00:02:40.800 --> 00:02:45.960 show a general consensus among contributors who typically disagree with each other. 00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:50.520 This encourages contributors to stick to the facts and cite reliable sources when writing 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 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 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 00:03:08.760 --> 00:03:13.280 the opinionated and placed nitpickers in the position of kingmaker. 00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:17.680 Unfortunately, many rank and file normal people users don't understand how Community 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:21.960 Notes works, which can lead to anger and mistrust of the feature. 00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:26.000 People often perceive Community Notes as coming from Twitter, or attribute them personally 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. 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:35.520 Others view the voting system as rigged, because they don't trust Twitter as an institution. 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, 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 00:03:45.480 --> 00:03:50.080 that a correction has been suspiciously removed by the powers that be. 00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:54.840 Likewise, it can be sometimes hard to fact check controversial figures with a passionate 00:03:54.840 --> 00:03:59.000 parasocial fanbase who are willing to vote down perfectly reasonable criticisms. 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:02.960 Plus, the contributor panel isn't all that visually distinct from the rest of Twitter, 00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:07.240 so some participants will take and post screenshots of sick dunks they've submitted as Community 00:04:07.240 --> 00:04:11.600 Notes, leading to the perception that this kind of petty squabbling is what's actually 00:04:11.600 --> 00:04:14.760 getting put on people's posts. It's not. 00:04:14.760 --> 00:04:19.600 But perhaps the biggest concern with Community Notes is that they demonetize any posts that 00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:24.800 they're applied to, with the idea being to disincentivize for-profit disinformation 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:28.120 like celebrity death hoaxes or conspiracy mills. 00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:32.120 The problem is that demonetization doesn't take into account why the note was written 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:37.220 in the first place, whether it was a correction, an update, or even just additional context. 00:04:37.220 --> 00:04:42.740 But these are mostly minor issues specific to X's implementation of Community Notes. 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 00:04:47.900 --> 00:04:52.860 elsewhere. Pretty much all social media companies use a mixture of algorithmic filtering and user 00:04:52.860 --> 00:04:57.940 reports to fly potential problem posts, which are then either automatically hidden or sent 00:04:57.940 --> 00:05:00.940 to a human moderator for a manual review. 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 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 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:21.180 human oversight. Notable examples include tumblers, notorious crackdown on adult material, which included 00:05:21.180 --> 00:05:25.420 a ban on female presenting nipples, and a moderation algorithm so aggressive it would 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 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 00:05:37.980 --> 00:05:42.780 system? Rather than viewing Community Notes as a full replacement for traditional fact-checking 00:05:42.780 --> 00:05:47.940 or social media moderation, it's probably better to think of it as a complementary tool. 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 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 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 00:06:05.380 --> 00:06:08.660 you don't necessarily want their opinion on Taylor Swift's love life. 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 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 00:06:20.900 --> 00:06:24.040 a well-constructed system that creates good results. 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 00:06:28.020 --> 00:06:32.540 higher capacity than traditional fact-checkers who typically have to focus on the most important 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 00:06:38.700 --> 00:06:41.860 fact-checking for local politicians who probably lie just as often. 00:06:41.860 --> 00:06:45.780 There's also a known problem where after the fact corrections rarely have the same 00:06:45.780 --> 00:06:50.660 virality in reach as the initial incorrect claim, because they're just not nearly as 00:06:50.660 --> 00:06:54.900 exciting or interesting. George Clooney got married to his own clone. 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 00:07:01.300 --> 00:07:05.380 because they're directly attached to the post making the original claim and can be easily 00:07:05.380 --> 00:07:10.280 spread to copycat posts through the efforts of a few diligent community members. 00:07:10.280 --> 00:07:14.220 These corrections are then immediately available to anyone who reads these posts rather than 00:07:14.220 --> 00:07:19.380 buried deep in the comments. Community Notes contributors can even magnify information from traditional fact-checking 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 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 00:07:31.540 --> 00:07:36.860 social media. Community Notes is also a better supplement than a replacement for standard moderation 00:07:36.860 --> 00:07:42.060 practices because it creates a middle ground that allows a platform to operate with a gentler 00:07:42.060 --> 00:07:49.420 hand rather than always reaching for the band hammer or, more likely on ELOXX, doing nothing. 00:07:49.420 --> 00:07:53.980 It's potentially a problem for public discourse when important figures say offensive, inaccurate 00:07:53.980 --> 00:07:59.900 or controversial things and those comments are removed rather than preserved and corrected. 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 00:08:04.100 --> 00:08:08.580 least try to be careful about which ideas we say aren't even worth hearing. 00:08:08.580 --> 00:08:12.580 Community Notes style fact-checking allows contrarians to at least speak their minds. 00:08:12.580 --> 00:08:16.960 There are also clear benefits to a system of user participation that balances the power 00:08:16.960 --> 00:08:21.500 of individual contributors rather than allowing them to consolidate power and act as petty 00:08:21.500 --> 00:08:26.780 liege lords over their own little subdomains, the way that forum style platforms like Reddit 00:08:26.780 --> 00:08:30.420 do. Some of those mods, man. So now, what do you think? 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? 00:08:36.020 --> 00:08:39.100 Should participation be financially incentivized or rewarded? 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 00:08:45.080 --> 00:08:50.320 streaming is basically becoming cable and don't forget to subscribe and follow and mail 00:08:50.320 --> 00:08:52.200 me a letter. Don't do that.