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I can’t stress this enough, for anyone who (like myself) for some reason didn’t think this was possible: Twitter’s community notes are no different from tweets

I can’t stress this enough, for anyone who (like myself) for some reason didn’t think this was possible: Twitter’s community notes are no different from tweets in their ability to spread misinformation. What makes them worse than tweets (at least the original immutable tweets) at combatting intentional disinformation is that Birdwatch notes 1) are visually formatted to communicate an impression of absolute ground truth, and 2) don’t reflect any controversy or edit history. A trending tweet with a false “correction” (such as the one that claimed a video of Xinjang police brutality against an Uyghur was showing Taiwanese police) would be viewed by millions of people, 99% of whom would read that note completely uncritically, before it would get corrected. The people who are equipped to recognize the lie, and who care to fight to get it corrected, are few compared to the army of internet trolls spreading that lie. Eventually the note may get rewritten—but at that point the tweet is no longer trending; the operation was a success and no one even knows that it took place. Since the note gets rewritten with no history maintained, the only evidence of the original malicious, false correction would have to be in that updated note, which is obviously an unpopular choice because it makes the new note harder to read and makes future readers do extra work to untangle what happened there. (Incidentally, one of the things that could reliably be used to combat bias—labeling tweets from accounts that are known to be associated with governments or such—was nuked by Elon right away.)

lobocinza 3y ago
As I said your mileage may vary. This looks like something that can be improved and an exception. I'd rather have imperfect decentralized information checking than centralized information checking that is know to be partisan, biased and easily bought. But please downvote me more as it shows that what you're truly in favor is censorship and monopoly over narrative.
- anileated 3y ago
  I do not deny your experience and I saw many useful community notes before. It took me seeing this case to understand that it is actually a bad idea, for the reasons I mentioned (illusion of absolute truth while being open to manipulation & showing no history of controversy). Also, it is not technically decentralized, it is Twitter (a centralized platform)… If it were truly fully decentralized, it would be vulnerable to such attacks even more, right? If you are up against a totalitarian government controlling the 2nd most populous country, there can always be more people who claim the false correction. There was a minority of people who got the correction fixed, and if it was actually decentralized then how would they be able to?
  - lobocinza 3y ago
    > it is not technically decentralized, it is Twitter (a centralized platform) Community notes are generated by users and not the platform it's not perfect but better than having a mainstream media oligopoly deciding what is truth and what isn't. > If it were truly fully decentralized, it would be vulnerable to such attacks even more, right? The algorithm tries to prevent this kind of abuse. "the Community Notes rating algorithm explicitly attempts to prioritize notes that receive positive ratings from people across a diverse range of perspectives". See Vitalik analysis: https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/08/16/communitynotes.html https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/08/16/communitynotes.h.... But from what you're telling it looks CCP found a way to game it.
    - anileated 3y ago
      Good point that the algorithm tries to compensate for the perspectives, but I’m sure it still comes down to a popularity contest. Generally, the platform determines the algorithm of which note wins, so that’s centralized. The algorithm depends on what kind and how many users vote and how. Those users exist on the platform which requires registration and can deny any given user. Centralized. Further, no guarantee that the actual algorithm in production matches the one made public, but I guess they have no reason to lie here. > from what you’re telling It’s not just me telling, the tweet has been up so far and community note does its best to awkwardly convey the controversy that would’ve been otherwise completely lost due to the ill designed way community notes work.
      - lobocinza 3y ago
        > Good point that the algorithm tries to compensate for the perspectives, but I’m sure it still comes down to a popularity contest. It isn't clear if polarization score have only one dimension where it would be great to capture US culture wars but fail to capture nuances outside of that or if it's more complex than that. > Generally, the platform determines the algorithm of which note wins, so that’s centralized. The algorithm depends on what kind and how many users vote and how. Those users exist on the platform which requires registration and can deny any given user. Centralized. Yes, not perfect but still better than the traditional media oligopoly. > Further, no guarantee that the actual algorithm in production matches the one made public, but I guess they have no reason to lie here. The algorithm and the data are open. It is reproducible. https://github.com/twitter/communitynotes https://github.com/twitter/communitynotes https://twitter.com/i/communitynotes/download-data https://twitter.com/i/communitynotes/download-data > It’s not just me telling, the tweet has been up so far and community note does its best to awkwardly convey the controversy that would’ve been otherwise completely lost due to the ill designed way community notes work. I checked the tweet (https://twitter.com/MOSSADil/status/1745921315498811752 https://twitter.com/MOSSADil/status/1745921315498811752) and at least now the community notes show a different content: > Original video, which provides a better look at the plate (鄂F1573警),indicates that the video was shot in Hubei, China. > > https://x.com/ken2009_/status/1227476618014330880?s=46 https://x.com/ken2009_/status/1227476618014330880?s=46 Many here are biased against Elon and Twitter for political reasons so they are too quick to pass judgement.

lobocinza 3y ago

As I said your mileage may vary. This looks like something that can be improved and an exception. I'd rather have imperfect decentralized information checking than centralized information checking that is know to be partisan, biased and easily bought. But please downvote me more as it shows that what you're truly in favor is censorship and monopoly over narrative.

anileated 3y ago
I do not deny your experience and I saw many useful community notes before. It took me seeing this case to understand that it is actually a bad idea, for the reasons I mentioned (illusion of absolute truth while being open to manipulation & showing no history of controversy). Also, it is not technically decentralized, it is Twitter (a centralized platform)… If it were truly fully decentralized, it would be vulnerable to such attacks even more, right? If you are up against a totalitarian government controlling the 2nd most populous country, there can always be more people who claim the false correction. There was a minority of people who got the correction fixed, and if it was actually decentralized then how would they be able to?
- lobocinza 3y ago
  > it is not technically decentralized, it is Twitter (a centralized platform) Community notes are generated by users and not the platform it's not perfect but better than having a mainstream media oligopoly deciding what is truth and what isn't. > If it were truly fully decentralized, it would be vulnerable to such attacks even more, right? The algorithm tries to prevent this kind of abuse. "the Community Notes rating algorithm explicitly attempts to prioritize notes that receive positive ratings from people across a diverse range of perspectives". See Vitalik analysis: https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/08/16/communitynotes.html https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/08/16/communitynotes.h.... But from what you're telling it looks CCP found a way to game it.
  - anileated 3y ago
    Good point that the algorithm tries to compensate for the perspectives, but I’m sure it still comes down to a popularity contest. Generally, the platform determines the algorithm of which note wins, so that’s centralized. The algorithm depends on what kind and how many users vote and how. Those users exist on the platform which requires registration and can deny any given user. Centralized. Further, no guarantee that the actual algorithm in production matches the one made public, but I guess they have no reason to lie here. > from what you’re telling It’s not just me telling, the tweet has been up so far and community note does its best to awkwardly convey the controversy that would’ve been otherwise completely lost due to the ill designed way community notes work.
    - lobocinza 3y ago
      > Good point that the algorithm tries to compensate for the perspectives, but I’m sure it still comes down to a popularity contest. It isn't clear if polarization score have only one dimension where it would be great to capture US culture wars but fail to capture nuances outside of that or if it's more complex than that. > Generally, the platform determines the algorithm of which note wins, so that’s centralized. The algorithm depends on what kind and how many users vote and how. Those users exist on the platform which requires registration and can deny any given user. Centralized. Yes, not perfect but still better than the traditional media oligopoly. > Further, no guarantee that the actual algorithm in production matches the one made public, but I guess they have no reason to lie here. The algorithm and the data are open. It is reproducible. https://github.com/twitter/communitynotes https://github.com/twitter/communitynotes https://twitter.com/i/communitynotes/download-data https://twitter.com/i/communitynotes/download-data > It’s not just me telling, the tweet has been up so far and community note does its best to awkwardly convey the controversy that would’ve been otherwise completely lost due to the ill designed way community notes work. I checked the tweet (https://twitter.com/MOSSADil/status/1745921315498811752 https://twitter.com/MOSSADil/status/1745921315498811752) and at least now the community notes show a different content: > Original video, which provides a better look at the plate (鄂F1573警),indicates that the video was shot in Hubei, China. > > https://x.com/ken2009_/status/1227476618014330880?s=46 https://x.com/ken2009_/status/1227476618014330880?s=46 Many here are biased against Elon and Twitter for political reasons so they are too quick to pass judgement.