Twitter#Censorship and moderation
As part of its means to moderate misinformation, Twitter launched its crowd-sourced Birdwatch program in January 2021 with 1,000 users. [1] In November 2022, at the request of new owner Elon Musk, Birdwatch was rebranded to Community Notes and expanded to Europe and more countries outside of the US. [2] [3] [4] Community Notes started to become widespread on Twitter in 2023. [3] Musk describes Community notes as a "game changer for combating wrong information". [4]
Community Notes users are volunteers with access to a playful interface from which they have the ability to monitor tweets and replies that may include misinformation. [4] [1] In November 2021, Twitter announced an update to the Birdwatch moderation tool, meant to limit the visibility of contributors' identities by creating aliases for their accounts. [5] In March 2022, Twitter expanded access to notes made by the Birdwatch moderators, giving a randomized set of US users the ability to view the notes attached to tweets and rate them. [6] [7]
A Community note is a countermessage providing fact check appearing under a tweet. [1] For a Community note to be published, a Community Note user must first propose a note under a tweet. [4] Users then give their opinion on the usefulness and sincerity of the note. [4] The note can be posted once many users with different points of view "who have disagreed in the past" have agreed on whether or not to publish it. [4] A Community note user gets points if their note is validated. [8] [4]
Since 2023, Community notes are often attached to shared articles missing context, misleading advertisements or political tweets with false arguments. [3] They also note when an image presented as real is actually AI-generated. [3] Similarly to Wikipedia, a source is attached to the note in most cases so the information can be verified. [4] [3] Elon Musk allowed to users to add to Community Notes to adverts, which the Financial Times noted was good for consumers but not for advertisers. [9] [8]
The feature does not mention fact checking but indicates "readers added context", as facts are complex and evolving rather than undisputed and established. [8] Wired has noted Community Notes itself is prone to being fooled by disinformation. [10] Le Monde concluded Community notes were useful, but were not a substitute of conventional moderation. [4]
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22community+notes%22+twitter&btnG=
including
The Community Notes Observatory: Can Crowdsourced Fact-Checking be Trusted in Practice?
Community Notes vs. Snoping: How the Crowd Selects Fact-Checking Targets on Social Media
The Roll-Out of Community Notes Did Not Reduce Engagement With Misinformation on Twitter
Limiting Factors in the Effectiveness of Crowd-Sourced Labeling for Combating Misinformation
Diffusion of Community Fact-Checked Misinformation on Twitter
When Partisans Fly: Twitter Community Notes and the Political Economy of Social Media Disinformation