Why Community Notes Matter
It's the most powerful tool on Twitter
In 2020 when a piece of propaganda was published like “Teacher Dies of Covid” we were stuck in the comments saying “This teacher retired from teaching in 2016, she did not contract Covid at school” hoping that others would read our fact checks. There were thousands of stories that misrepresented the facts- lying with statistics and a handful of us battling it out in the comments.
“Community Notes aim to create a better-informed world by empowering people on Twitter to collaboratively add context to potentially misleading Tweets. Contributors can leave notes on any Tweet and if enough contributors from different points of view rate that note as helpful, the note will be publicly shown on a Tweet.”
Can you imagine the impact this would have had in 2020?
Yet, many people haven’t applied to be a community notes contributor and those that have been approved haven’t dug into the nuances of community notes.
I spend too much time on Twitter as it is- why should I become a contributor?
See community notes pending on all tweets in your feed
Easy access to pending notes When you do decide that something is so egregious it’s worth your time- it will be too late to apply- it can take up to 4 months to be approved.
We need you
The majority of people in community notes have A LOT of time on their hands. Those of us with jobs and hobbies aren’t in there nearly as often- so we need more of us.
It takes literally 90 seconds to apply:
What can I do while I wait?
If you see a tweet that should be noted tag Community Note Needed this account will share with you the birdwatch links so you can see and vote on pending notes. This account will also submit a note you write and source on your behalf. This account is run by a number of us who are approved and is not an account run by Twitter.
Most people don’t realize they can vote on pending community notes even if they’re not approved community note contributors- here’s how:
Once you apply, go to the Birdwatch link (https://twitter.com/i/birdwatch, bookmark it) and you’ll see
Click on “New"
Then you’ll see at the bottom of each tweet “see all notes on this tweet” click here and you can vote on pending notes
Non-approved voters can also vote on very specific tweets- if you share the html link to that pending note (the link that has https://twitter.com/i/birdwatch in it)
Community notes feel like they should be intuitive and easy to use- I highly recommend reading the User Guide to better understand how it operates.