Twitter has begun rolling out Community Notes to all of its users globally, the company announced on Saturday. Previously known as Birdwatch, the feature first debuted in 2021 under former CEO Jack Dorsey as means for the social media website to combat misinformation.
Community Notes takes a crowd-sourced approach to debunking misleading tweets. Moderators who are part of the program can append notes to tweets to add “context.” Regular users can then vote on whether they find the context “helpful.” Before today, only individuals in the US could see the notes. Twitter says it will start adding contributors from other regions soon.
Beginning today, Community Notes are visible around the world 🌎🌍🌏
— Community Notes (@CommunityNotes) December 11, 2022
Current company owner Elon Musk has positioned Community Notes as a critical element of his “Twitter 2.0” vision, claiming the feature will be “a gamechanger for improving accuracy on Twitter.” However, as with any crowd-sourced feature, there’s the potential for Community Notes to backfire if groups use the tool to promote partisan views.
The global rollout of Community Notes comes a day before the relaunch of Twitter Blue. Following a disastrous first attempt at paid account verification, Twitter announced on Saturday it would start rolling out its revamped subscription service again on Monday. This time around, subscribers will need to provide a number for verification purposes before the company will add a blue checkmark to their account. Additionally, users who change their handle, display name and profile photo will temporarily lose their blue checkmark while Twitter reviews their account.