Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, is considering extending its crowd-sourced fact-checking feature, Community Notes, to newspapers and other platforms, according to CEO Linda Yaccarino.
What Happened: Yaccarino made the announcement at the VivaTech technology conference in Paris on Friday, reported Bloomberg.
The feature, introduced in 2021, allows users to fact-check misleading posts by adding context notes that are then voted on by other users. X’s algorithms then decide which note should be displayed alongside the misleading post.
"It is not impossible to imagine that this particular tool is shared by X to companies like yours, other platforms," Yaccarino said at the conference.
Musk has been promoting the tool as a defense against misinformation and sometimes as an alternative to traditional journalism since acquiring the platform in 2022.
Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox.
Despite its effectiveness in fact-checking scientific or medical information, the tool has faced challenges with more controversial topics, such as the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Yaccarino, a former head of NBCUniversal's global ad business, also attributed the decline in revenue for legacy media to a “clickbait mentality” and a “partisan news environment” that favors tech platforms like Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Meta Platforms Inc.
Why It Matters: Musk has been a vocal advocate of the Community Notes feature, praising its accuracy and effectiveness. A recent study revealed a 96% accuracy rate, prompting Musk to commend the team for their “great work.”
Earlier, Musk had hailed X as the “best source of truth” after President Biden’s inflation claims were flagged by Community Notes. Despite the tool flagging his own fake news posts, Musk has consistently supported it as a means to combat misinformation.
With the potential expansion of Community Notes to other platforms, X could significantly impact the way misinformation is addressed across the digital landscape.
Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Photo courtesy: Shutterstock
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
