X Tests New Process To Reduce Political Division

This story was originally published on Social Media Today. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Social Media Today newsletter.
You have to give credit where credit's due: While I don't believe that X's Community Notes approach is an effective way to combat the spread of misinformation in the app (at least as a sole measure, outside of internally-staffed moderation), I do respect that the Community Notes development team is continually working to implement new updates to address key concerns with the Notes system.
Today, X's Community Notes team has announced a new experiment that will highlight content which sees agreement from users of differing political perspectives, in the hopes of reducing division and angst in the app.
As you can see in this example, X will soon begin showing some users (Community Notes contributors to start with) prompts in the lower segment of some X posts that have been liked by people from opposing sides of the political spectrum.
And if you tap through on the 'What do you think?' text, you'll be able to give the X team more insight as to what you like, or don't, about that specific post, which could help X address common elements of division on content.
As explained by X:
'A subset of Community Notes contributors - representing a wide range of viewpoints - will occasionally see a new callout in the product. The callout shows based on early and limited Like signals on the post. Contributors will then be able to rate and provide more feedback about the post, helping to develop an open source algorithm that could effectively identify posts liked by people from different perspectives.'
X says that these ratings won't affect a post's reach or visibility, but that:
'Depending on insights and feedback from the pilot test, it is possible that in the future, ratings could help spotlight posts that are liked by people who normally disagree.'
Why is that important?
Because political disagreement is a key flaw within the Community Notes system, with Community Notes only being displayed in the app when Notes assessors of differing political perspectives agree that a note is warranted.
It's this proviso that's led to many, many Community Notes never being shown, to anybody, despite these posts often including blatant misinformation.
Indeed, according to analysis conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) last year, 73% of submitted Community Notes relating to political topics are never displayed on X, despite them often providing valuable context, while another study conducted earlier this year by Spanish fact-checking site Maldita found that 85% of all Community Notes are never displayed to X users for the same reason.
On some issues, users are never going to agree, and those often relate to divisive misinformation about hot-button political issues.
That's worsened in the current landscape, where even the U.S. President is prone to amplifying questionable claims. As such, Community Notes often fails to keep people informed of relevant context, because people don't agree on the need for such on certain points.
But maybe, if X is able to showcase more cases of agreement, that will ease disputes, and get people to view things in a more objective way.
I mean, it seems unlikely that Republican and Democrat aligned voters are ever going to agree that the 2020 U.S. Election was manipulated or not, no matter evidence is produced, but maybe, if X can build more community alignment into the system, by showcasing such to respective users, that could at least open more conversation around more topics, as opposed to siloing people into their own echo chambers.
It's worth a shot, and it's a fairly simple measure, at this stage, to better demonstrate relative agreement.
And if X can somehow dilute this aspect, and ensure more relevant, valuable Community Notes are displayed in the app, that could be a big step forward in ensuring greater protection for X users.

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