PanaTimes

Friday, Jun 09, 2023

Elon Musk says Twitter's Birdwatch feature will be renamed 'Community Notes' and is aimed at 'improving information accuracy' amid growing content-moderation concerns

Elon Musk says Twitter's Birdwatch feature will be renamed 'Community Notes' and is aimed at 'improving information accuracy' amid growing content-moderation concerns

The tool, which allows users to add context notes to potentially misleading posts, went public last month after a pilot program in the US.

Elon Musk tweeted Saturday about an expansion of Twitter's Birdwatch feature that he said has "incredible potential for improving information accuracy" as the new CEO faces ongoing concerns over content inaccuracies and moderation on the social media platform.

Birdwatch will allow users to add context to notes on potentially misleading posts. It also will be renamed "Community Notes," and Musk tweeted that the tool has "incredible potential for improving information accuracy" on the platform.

The billionaire made the remarks in response to a tweet from Twitter Vice President of Product Keith Coleman who commented on Birdwatch's "usage spike over the past week."

Coleman's tweet included a thread written by Alex Mahadevan, director of Mediawise, that cited publicly available data showing that the number of Birdwatch notes had increased to 131 a day, up from 45 per day prior, during the five days since Musk's purchase of Twitter.

Birdwatch notes first became public to users in early October, after the feature was launched in a pilot program in the US in January 2021. According to a blog post written by Coleman on the Twitter website, the feature "allows people to identify information in Tweets they believe is misleading and write notes that provide informative context."

"We believe this approach has the potential to respond quickly when misleading information spreads, adding context that people trust and find valuable," Coleman wrote.

Among tweets where Birdwatch notes have appeared in the past week is a post from Musk himself. He claimed "Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation."

He continued: "Extremely messed up! They're trying to destroy free speech in America."

A Birdwatch note currently affixed to that tweet states: "Multiple advertisers have confirmed they are pausing spending while they see what direction Elon Musk takes with the platform," and links to a Guardian article about General Mills temporarily pulling advertising.

The uptick comes as hundreds of employees reportedly were cut off from operating Twitter's content-moderation system earlier week, leaving just 15 staffers with access to the program, Bloomberg reported.

Musk later promised civil rights leaders he would restore access to the content-moderation system, and told advertisers he is considering creating tiers of content moderation similar to movie ratings, according to The Financial Times.

Initially, posts were only visible on a separate Birdwatch site, before they were integrated into the platform. According to the company, "Birdwatch is made up of independent contributors, and individual notes are never written by Twitter."

"This is intentional, as it helps ensure our efforts to address potentially misleading information are informed by a diverse group of people who use our service," the company wrote in its October 2022 blog post.

Users can rate notes as "Helpful" or "Not Helpful," and notes are surfaced publicly based on an algorithm that Twitter shared openly on GitHub.

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

PanaTimes
Close
0:00
0:00
US and European Intelligence Agencies Uncover Evidence of Ukrainian Role in Terror Attack on Nord Stream Pipeline
Nvidia Joins Tech Giants as First Chipmaker to Reach $1 Trillion Valuation
Drone Attack on Moscow's Wealthiest Neighborhoods Suspected to be Launched by Ukraine
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to Hold Power Talks with President Biden in Washington
AI ‘extinction’ should be same priority as nuclear war – experts
Prominent Hacker Forum RaidForums Suffers Substantial Data Breach
Nvidia CEO Huang says firms, individuals without AI expertise will be left behind
WPP Revolutionizes Advertising with NVIDIA's AI Powerhouse
Two US Employees Fired For Chasing Robbers Out Of Store As They Broke ''Company Policy''
If you donated to BLM, you got played
Pfizer, the EU, and disappearing ink - Smoke, Mirrors, and the Billion-Dose Pfizer Vaccine Deal: EU's 'Open Secret
Actor Tom Hanks told Harvard University graduates to be superheroes in their defense of truth and American ideals, and to resist those who twist the truth for their own gain
The Sussexes' Royal Rebound: Could Harry and Meghan Markle Return to the UK?
A provocative study suggests: Left-Wing Extremism and its Unsettling Connection to Psychopathy and Narcissism
France Arrests 10 on Suspicion of Failing to Respond in Time to Migrant Drowning
Neuralink Receives FDA Approval for First-in-Human Clinical Study
Saudi Arabia and Canada Restore Diplomatic Relations
Bernard Arnault Loses $11.2 Billion in One Day as Investors Fear Slowdown in US Growth Will Reduce Demand for Luxury Products
Russian’s Wagner Group leader: “I am not a chef, I am a butcher. Russia is in danger of a revolution like in 1917.”
TikTok Sues Montana Over Law Banning the App
Ron DeSantis Jumps Into 2024 Presidential Race, Setting Up Showdown With Trump
Last Walmart in North Portland Closing Down
Florida's DeSantis seeks to disqualify judge in Disney case
Talks between US House Republicans and President Biden's Democratic administration on raising the federal government's $31.4tn debt ceiling have paused
Disney has canceled plans to build a new campus in Florida worth almost $1 billion
Biden Administration Eyeing High-Profile Visits to China: The Biden Administration is heating things up by looking into setting up a series of top-level visits to Beijing by top officials in the coming months
New evidence in special counsel probe may undercut Trump’s claim documents he took were automatically declassified
A French court of appeals confirmed former President Nicolas Sarkozy's three-year jail term for corruption and influence peddling
Debt Ceiling Crises Have Unleashed Political Chaos
Weibao Wang, a former software engineer at Apple, was charged with stealing trade secrets related to autonomous systems, including self-driving cars
Mobile phone giant Vodafone to cut 11,000 jobs globally over three years as new boss says its performance not good enough
Elon Musk compares George Soros to Magneto, the supervillain from the Marvel Comics series.
Warren Buffett Sells TSMC Shares Over Concerns About Taiwan's Stability
New Study Finds That Secondary Bacterial Pneumonia Is a Major Cause of Death in COVID-19 Patients Who Require Ventilator Assistance
King Charles III being crowned.
'Godfather Of AI' Geoffrey Hinton Quits Google To Warn Of The Tech's Dangers
A Real woman
Vermont Man Charged with Stalking After Secretly Tracking Woman with Apple AirTag
Elon Musk Statements About Tesla Autopilot Could Be 'Deepfakes,' Lawyers Claim. Judge Evette Pennypacker Does Not Understand How Far and Advanced This Technology Became
Ukraine More Prepared for Counterattack as Reinforcements Arrive
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Discuss Migration, Defence, and Ukraine
Tucker Carlson is back, soon!
AT&T's Successful Test of Satellite-Based Phone Call Raises Possibility of Widespread Coverage
CNN: "Joe Biden is asking for four more years — when 74% of Americans think the country is heading the wrong way“
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Cuts Short Live TV Interview Due to Health Issue
US Congresswoman threaten Twitter Files journalist with arrest
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh slams New York Times' pro-government stance and treatment of sources
Enough is enough: it's time to end the war in Ukraine. While Russia may be to blame for starting it, Russia is not the one refusing to stop it
Fox News Settles their case with Dominion Voting Systems for a staggering $787.5 MILLION
The land of the free violence
×