Latest news with #CommunityNotes
Free Malaysia Today
5 days ago
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Rise in ‘harmful content' since Meta policy rollbacks
Meta's move was seen as appeasing Trump's administration, which claims fact-checking censors free speech and targets conservative content. (Reuters pic) PALO ALTO : Harmful content including hate speech has surged across Meta's platforms since the company ended third-party fact-checking in the US and eased moderation policies, a survey showed Monday. The survey of around 7,000 active users on Instagram, Facebook and Threads comes after the Palo Alto company ditched US fact-checkers in January and turned over the task of debunking falsehoods to ordinary users under a model known as 'Community Notes,' popularised by X. The decision was widely seen as an attempt to appease President Donald Trump's new administration, whose conservative support base has long complained that fact-checking on tech platforms was a way to curtail free speech and censor right-wing content. Meta also rolled back restrictions around topics such as gender and sexual identity. The tech giant's updated community guidelines said its platforms would permit users to accuse people of 'mental illness' or 'abnormality' based on their gender or sexual orientation. 'These policy shifts signified a dramatic reversal of content moderation standards the company had built over nearly a decade,' said the survey published by digital and human rights groups including UltraViolet, GLAAD, and All Out. 'Among our survey population of approximately 7,000 active users, we found stark evidence of increased harmful content, decreased freedom of expression, and increased self-censorship.' One in six respondents in the survey reported being the victim of some form of gender-based or sexual violence on Meta platforms, while 66% said they had witnessed harmful content such as hateful or violent material. 92% of surveyed users said they were concerned about increasing harmful content and felt 'less protected from being exposed to or targeted by' such material on Meta's platforms. 77% of respondents described feeling 'less safe' expressing themselves freely. The company declined to comment on the survey. In its most recent quarterly report, published in May, Meta insisted that the changes in January had left a minimal impact. 'Following the changes announced in January we've cut enforcement mistakes in the US in half, while during that same time period the low prevalence of violating content on the platform remained largely unchanged for most problem areas,' the report said. But the groups behind the survey insisted that the report did not reflect users' experiences of targeted hate and harassment. 'Social media is not just a place we 'go' anymore. It's a place we live, work, and play. That's why it's more crucial than ever to ensure that all people can safely access these spaces and freely express themselves without fear of retribution,' Jenna Sherman, campaign director at UltraViolet, told AFP. 'But after helping to set a standard for content moderation online for nearly a decade, (chief executive) Mark Zuckerberg decided to move his company backwards, abandoning vulnerable users in the process. 'Facebook and Instagram already had an equity problem. Now, it's out of control,' Sherman added. The groups implored Meta to hire an independent third party to 'formally analyse changes in harmful content facilitated by the policy changes' made in January, and for the tech giant to swiftly reinstate the content moderation standards that were in place earlier. The International Fact-Checking Network has previously warned of devastating consequences if Meta broadens its policy shift related to fact-checkers beyond US borders to the company's programmes covering more than 100 countries. AFP currently works in 26 languages with Meta's fact-checking programme, including in Asia, Latin America, and the European Union.
See - Sada Elbalad
08-06-2025
- Business
- See - Sada Elbalad
X Launches New Feature to Highlight Cross-Opinion Engagement
By Ahmad El-Assasy Social media platform X has introduced a new experimental feature designed to identify posts that receive likes from users who typically oppose the views expressed in them. The initiative builds on X's 'Community Notes' function—originally launched to provide context or flag misinformation on the platform. Starting last Thursday, select contributors to the Community Notes program can now view and evaluate posts that spark engagement from users across ideological divides. According to X, this experimental tool could eventually enhance an open-source algorithm capable of detecting 'bridging posts'—those that resonate with individuals holding differing opinions. The platform explained in a blog post: > 'People often feel the world is divided, yet Community Notes show it's possible to find common ground, even on controversial topics. This new pilot aims to uncover ideas and insights that cross ideological boundaries.' Interactive Feedback Options Contributors will now be prompted to indicate their reaction to a post using specific options such as 'I learned something interesting' or 'I disagree with this.' These qualitative insights will help refine the algorithm's ability to assess which types of content foster cross-viewpoint engagement. The company also noted that surfacing such posts could make users more aware of broadly impactful content—and may even encourage people to share more constructive ideas. Wider Implications and Background Tech news site TechCrunch noted that X first introduced Community Notes in 2022, shortly after billionaire Elon Musk acquired the platform, then known as Twitter. Since then, rival platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads have implemented similar user-driven content moderation tools. X hopes the new feature will 'move the world forward in ways people want,' by promoting dialogue, reducing polarization, and encouraging content that unites rather than divides. read more Gold prices rise, 21 Karat at EGP 3685 NATO's Role in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict US Expresses 'Strong Opposition' to New Turkish Military Operation in Syria Shoukry Meets Director-General of FAO Lavrov: confrontation bet. nuclear powers must be avoided News Iran Summons French Ambassador over Foreign Minister Remarks News Aboul Gheit Condemns Israeli Escalation in West Bank News Greek PM: Athens Plays Key Role in Improving Energy Security in Region News One Person Injured in Explosion at Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid News China Launches Largest Ever Aircraft Carrier Sports Former Al Zamalek Player Ibrahim Shika Passes away after Long Battle with Cancer Lifestyle Get to Know 2025 Eid Al Adha Prayer Times in Egypt Sports Neymar Announced for Brazil's Preliminary List for 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers News Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly Inaugurates Two Indian Companies Arts & Culture New Archaeological Discovery from 26th Dynasty Uncovered in Karnak Temple Business Fear & Greed Index Plummets to Lowest Level Ever Recorded amid Global Trade War Arts & Culture Zahi Hawass: Claims of Columns Beneath the Pyramid of Khafre Are Lies News Flights suspended at Port Sudan Airport after Drone Attacks News Shell Unveils Cost-Cutting, LNG Growth Plan
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Use of Community Notes on Elon Musk's X has plummeted in 2025, data shows
Participation is plummeting in the community-driven feature that X owner Elon Musk touted as the solution to the social media site's misinformation problems. Submissions to X's Community Notes, which add user-generated context and corrections to the platform's posts, have cratered this year, according to an NBC News analysis of X data. Fewer submissions has led to fewer notes getting displayed. And the number of notes isn't the only issue: In May, technical glitches led to the disappearance of notes from the main X site, which X acknowledged in a post. Musk, who once routinely touted the feature, now rarely mentions it. The system saw a peak of nearly 120,000 user-created notes in January. But the monthly counts have been cut in half since then, with fewer than 60,000 in May. Only a small percentage of notes created are displayed on the site, and displayed notes have declined by similar proportions, according to the analysis. Worldwide, traffic to X has ticked down since January from about 4.7 billion visits to 4.4 billion in May, according to estimates provided to NBC News from the analytics company Similarweb, though the rate of decline in Community Notes submissions is sharper than the rate of traffic decline. The drop in Community Notes submissions began in February, the same month Musk said without evidence that the system was being gamed by foreign governments and needed to be fixed. For a Community Note to be posted, an approved contributor must submit it for review. Then, other Community Notes contributors vote on contributions to certain posts, and an algorithm determines which contributions are ranked most 'helpful' by a diverse group of voters. A spokesperson for X attributed the decline to 'natural swings in note volume based on world events.' '[Last year] was a big year in that regard,' the spokesperson said in an email, citing high volumes around elections worldwide. In 2025, misinformation about a variety of non-election-related topics has gone viral on the site, from videos about the U.S. Agency for International Development to lies about the Los Angeles wildfires. X is also adjusting its algorithm to reduce the need for notes, the spokesperson said: 'If people are seeing fewer posts that might benefit from notes, they'll naturally feel less of a need to write or request a note.' The notes' decline has real stakes for X. Experts say the dwindling submission numbers to Community Notes could run the social media site afoul of European regulators, who were already investigating the company over its ability to meet European Union regulations. The European Union's Digital Services Act requires certain sites such as X to reduce, via content moderation tools, the amount of misinformation published. 'In Europe, keeping Community Notes functional isn't a nice-to-have,' Matt Navarra, a social media consultant in the U.K., told NBC News. 'It's a compliance issue.' The product that would become Community Notes debuted with the name Birdwatch in 2021. That was before Musk's October 2022 purchase of the company, when it was still called Twitter. According to current documentation, 'Community Notes aims to create a better-informed world, by empowering people on X to collaboratively add helpful notes to posts that might be misleading.' After Musk rebranded the product, he quickly scaled access to it for users, beginning in December 2022, as he pulled back on content moderation and shifted the platform's policies. The company cut employees who worked on election integrity and countering misinformation, loosened rules around hate speech, and reinstated the accounts of extremists who had been banned. X also churned through trust and safety leads. By 2024, Community Notes had taken off. X data shows note submissions had been climbing steadily. X CEO Linda Yaccarino told a marketing convention audience in April that the company had expanded Community Notes from 70 countries in May 2024 to 200 in 2025. The system has also been adopted by other platforms. Meta announced in March that it was using some of X's technology for its own Community Notes system, and TikTok announced a similar feature called Footnotes in April. When a Community Notes note is displayed alongside a post, the spread of that particular piece of misinformation is kneecapped, Keith Coleman, a vice president at X who works with the Community Notes team, said on a podcast: 'The thing will be going viral, note appears, resharing drops 50-60% and that's it. The virality quickly goes to zero.' Many X users now regularly turn to the platform's artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, for fact-checking and context, though that has not been without its own issues. Still, the decline could be particularly problematic for a system that relies on volunteers who have faith that their time and effort are contributing to something valuable. 'When users stop seeing notes, they stop believing the system works, and that's when the trust dies,' Navarra said. 'So, yeah, absolutely, volume matters. The more notes being written and shown, the more coverage you get for viral posts, misleading content and general misinformation.' This article was originally published on
NBC News
06-06-2025
- Business
- NBC News
Use of X's Community Notes has plummeted in 2025, data shows
Participation is plummeting in the community-driven feature that X owner Elon Musk touted as the solution to the social media site's misinformation problems. Submissions to X's Community Notes, which add user-generated context and corrections to the platform's posts, have cratered this year, according to an NBC News analysis of X data. Fewer submissions has led to fewer notes getting displayed. And the number of notes isn't the only issue: In May, technical glitches led to the disappearance of notes from the main X site, which X acknowledged in a post. Musk, who once routinely touted the feature, now rarely mentions it. The system saw a peak of nearly 120,000 user-created notes in January. But the monthly counts have been cut in half since then, with fewer than 60,000 in May. Only a small percentage of notes created are displayed on the site, and displayed notes have declined by similar proportions, according to the analysis. Worldwide, traffic to X has ticked down since January from about 4.7 billion visits to 4.4 billion in May, according to estimates provided to NBC News from the analytics company Similarweb, though the rate of decline in Community Notes submissions is sharper than the rate of traffic decline. The drop in Community Notes submissions began in February, the same month Musk said without evidence that the system was being gamed by foreign governments and needed to be fixed.
Time of India
06-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Elon Musk's X tests highlighting ‘opposing views' feature
Elon Musk-owned X is testing a new feature designed to expose users to a wider range of viewpoints by highlighting posts that have been liked by individuals with "opposing experimental feature aims to break down echo chambers and encourage the discovery of content that challenges a user's existing perspectives. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now 'Starting today, 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 can then rate and provide feedback about the post, helping to develop an open source algorithm that could effectively identify posts liked by people from different perspectives,' said the company. How the feature works The experiment identifies posts that receive likes from users who typically disagree, signaling content that resonates across ideological lines. A subset of Community Notes contributors will be asked to rate and provide feedback on these posts, selecting options like 'I learned something interesting' or 'I don't agree with it.' X stated that the feature aims to highlight insights that bridge perspectives, encouraging users to share ideas that resonate broadly. The company hopes it will motivate more balanced discussions and reduce polarization on the platform. 'People often feel the world is divided, yet Community Notes shows people can agree, even on contentious topics. This experimental new feature seeks to uncover ideas, insights, and opinions that bridge perspectives. It can bring awareness to what resonates broadly. It could motivate people to share those ideas in the first place. Ultimately, it could help move the world forward in ways that the people want,' added the company.
