Yeah, I’m guessing this isn’t going to be around for too long.
Back in October, X owner Elon Musk agreed with a proposal to include a profile indicator in some form for users who regularly receive Community Notes corrections. That would then highlight those who have been found to be sharing misinformation in the app in the past, and by sharing this additional context, that would then reduce trust in that profile, while X could also consider maybe limiting the reach of their posts as a result of repeated Community Notes, which X claims is the most accurate indicator of truth.
Well according to this new website, which shows the users that have had the most Community Notes applied to their updates, and lets you view all of those notes with just a few clicks, a lot of Elon’s top supporters, and profiles that he regularly interacts with, would be most impacted by any such change.
These profiles are the most “noted” users in the app, with Elon’s pals Ian Miles Cheong, Mario Nawful, and Wall Street Silver, all appearing in the top 20 of the list.
Elon himself comes in at #27, ahead of President Joe Biden and Rep. Marjorie Green.
So if X were to use Notes as an indicator of profile trust, Elon would be among the least trusted sources. So I‘m guessing that a profile indicator won’t be coming anytime soon.
The Community Notes ranking, put together by The Elipsoid, provides some interesting insight into the Notes process, and who’s being checked most often by the system. And the fact that you can easily read the Notes added to each account also makes it a handy tool for understanding what gets Noted, and how the process functions.
Elon has been keen to talk up Community Notes as a key weapon in crowd-sourced moderation, which, in his view, is a better system to dictate what should and should not be highlighted as potentially false information to users, as opposed to platform management making moderation calls.
Though various researchers claim that Community Notes is not an adequate replacement for stringent moderation measures, which has also prompted the EU to launch a new investigation into X’s updated processes, centered around Community Notes as a misinformation deterrent.
There is clearly a level of value to the Community Notes system, in enabling users to share contextual pointers on posts, but the reliance that X seems to be putting on it is likely more than it can handle, and beyond the remit of what it had initially been intended for.
And it’ll be interesting to see how Elon and Co. respond to this listing, and which profiles are getting the most Notes in the app.
I mean, when Community Notes haven’t gone his way in the past, Elon has simply derided the system, and claimed that it’s being infiltrated by “state-based actors”. Which would mean that it’s probably not the best source of truth? You can’t have it both ways.
In any event, I suspect Elon and Co. will be none-to-pleased to find that profiles that he regularly engages with, as well as his own, are among the most Noted.
You can check out the Community Notes Leaderboard here.
