Here's some unexpected news. In late 2022 Twitter added a feature called Community Notes, which allows readers to add short remarks to posts they believe are either wrong or lack important context. If the note gets enough upvotes, it's attached to the tweet permanently.
A team of researchers was curious about how well this worked in the area of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. The results might surprise you:
Ninety-seven percent of notes were entirely accurate, 2% partially accurate, and 0.5% inaccurate.
Not bad! It might be harder to judge the accuracy of notes in other areas, where accuracy is a little more a matter of opinion, but this nonetheless speaks well of both the note writers and the quality of the algorithm that promotes notes.
Interestingly, the number of vaccine notes was fairly steady and low throughout 2023 until November, when the number suddenly shot up. Something must have happened around then, but my memory fails me. I'm not sure what it was.
Oh, November: probably the age old question of whether they used marshmallows on the sweet potatoes on the first thanksgiving.
Ah yes, the platform of Nazis, White Nationalists, sports fans, porn, "journalists", and people who are afraid of starting from the ground up if they switch social media. 😗
In November 2023 WHO said that people who take ivermectin for COVID are morons.
I'd like to add a community note; The correct term should be idiots, not morons.
😉
Twitterpedia.
I'm flabbergasted that Elmo has allowed Community Notes to function this well. Probably he just hasn't noticed yet.
Unfortunately, the community notes are slow to appear and can - and are - gamed to support bullying and bigotry.
In the last six months, Twitter has stopped moderating transphobia and bullying altogether, for instance, and the community notes have multiple times been used to promote Holocaust denial.
The jewish and trans people's accounts have been hit by moderation while the Holocaust denial remains. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jk-rowling-adds-holocaust-denialism-to-her-transphobia
Elon hates Wikipedia although it provides the same, highly democratised service as Community Notes. He claims elitist editors control Wikipedia, but he's just angry he's not the one controlling things.
Conservapedia has been going for years and it is just a garbage version of Wikipedia. Russia shut down Wikipedia and is now running its own garbage version. Elon wants to do the same but with the actual Wikipedia. Killing it is necessary to let the garbage versions thrive.