What is Twitter's Community Notes and how to become contributor
What's the story
Twitter, more than a social media platform, is also one of the prominent sources of news. Therefore, it is essential to ensure the veracity of the information disseminated through the platform. To ensure this, Twitter introduced Community Notes, a user-driven fact-checking tool. The microblogging site has now invited more users to sign up to become Community Notes contributors.
Launch
It was previously known as Birdwatch
Community Notes is a feature Twitter uses to fight misinformation. The company piloted the feature in January 2021. At the time, it was called Birdwatch. In October last year, a couple of weeks before Elon Musk's acquisition, the company expanded the visibility of the program to all users in the US. In November 2022, Twitter changed the feature's name to Community Notes.
About the feature
Community Notes let contributors add notes to tweets
Community Notes is a crowdsourced fact-checking system. It allows contributors part of the program to provide additional context to published posts on the platform. Post Musk's acquisition of the company, the program was expanded globally in December last year. The program lets moderators add notes to tweets. These notes will be then rated by contributors based on how useful they are.
Notes
Contributors from different points of view have to rate
Twitter does not decide which notes show up. It is based on ratings provided by contributors. Contributors can rate notes "helpful" if they do so. However, notes not only require enough ratings, but those ratings have to come from contributors from different points of view. If enough contributors mark "helpful," the note will show up.
Eligibility
Contributors should fulfill the eligibility criteria
To become a Community Notes contributor, users have to fulfill the eligibility criteria. An eligible user is someone who has had no Twitter rules violations since January 1, 2023 and joined the platform at least six months ago. Users also need a verified phone number. The number should be of a trusted carrier and is not associated with other Community Notes accounts.
Ratings
Contributors have to rate notes first
Anyone who fulfills the eligibility criteria can sign up for the Community Notes program. Every contributor starts by rating notes. Before they can unlock the ability to write notes, they must rate a sufficient number of notes. Rating notes will increase their 'Rating Impact,' which is determined by whether their rating helped a note earn a 'Helpful' or 'Not helpful' status.
Writing
Ability to write notes can be locked temporarily
Contributors can find their Rating Impact in their Community Notes profile. Once a user has a Rating Impact of five, they will be able to write notes. Users can lose this ability to write notes if three of their five recent notes reach the status of 'Not Helpful.' They can unlock the ability again by improving their Rating Impact by five.
Availability
Twitter admits contributors in batches
At first, only users from the US were accepted as Community Notes contributors. Twitter later started admitting contributors from the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. The microblogging platform recently welcomed contributors from Brazil to the fold. Next in line are contributors from Japan and a group of Spanish-speaking countries. It admits new contributors in batches, growing the base by approximately 10% every week.