Elon Musk Announces Changes to X’s Community Notes System Impacting Revenue Share
X posts that are corrected by Community Notes, the platform’s crowd-sourced fact-checking system, will become “ineligible for revenue share,” Elon Musk said Sunday.
With the aim of prioritizing accuracy over sensationalism, Elon Musk recently revealed that any posts on X that are corrected by the Community Notes system will no longer be eligible for revenue share. The Community Notes system relies on the contributions of users to propose short contextual notes, point out important omissions, or correct errors in posts. These notes are then rated by other users, with the most helpful and accurate notes rising to the top.
In an effort to maintain the integrity of the platform and combat the spread of misinformation, X has been implementing various updates to enhance accuracy via Community Notes. For instance, recent updates allow fact-checks to gather ratings more quickly, ensuring valuable and accurate notes can be published sooner. Additionally, notifications are sent to users whose activity has received a fact-check, encouraging them to either remove or edit posts for better context.
By demonetizing users whose posts have been corrected, X hopes to discourage the acceleration of sensationalist information contributed by creators who may have financial incentives to participate in the reaction economy. However, it remains to be seen whether these measures, along with previous updates, will effectively curb the tide of misinformation amidst ongoing conflicts such as the Israel-Hamas war and the Russia-Ukraine war.
It is important to note that the number of X Premium subscribers on the platform determines the user pool for the creator economy. As of August, there were fewer than 950,000 X Premium subscribers, accounting for less than 1% of the platform’s total user base of over 500 million monthly active users. Since creators must be Premium users, their presence is likely even more limited.
While X claims that the Community Notes contributors represent a diverse set of users, the company has not disclosed the demographics of those who have signed up. According to X CEO Linda Yaccarino’s October blog post, there are now over 100,000 Community Notes contributors in 44 countries.
