Elon Musk's platform, X, has announced improvements to its Community Notes feature, promising faster display times for user-contributed context on posts.
The update, which aims to enhance user experience and combat misinformation, is part of X's ongoing efforts to refine its platform functionality.
Community Notes Are Now Faster, According to X
The recent optimization to the Community Notes scorer system is projected to reduce the time it takes for notes to become visible by approximately 30 minutes.
This enhancement involves streamlining the computation process, particularly the initial matrix factorization, by introducing a prescoring step.
By redistributing computational tasks, the final scoring step operates more efficiently, enabling faster and more frequent note display without compromising accuracy.
"Community Notes got faster, yet again. We just rolled out an optimization to the scorer that shaves 30mins of the time it takes notes to go live," X said in a post.
"Under the hood details: we moved some of the computation (e.g. the initial matrix factorization) into a prescoring step, which speeds up the final scoring step and allows it to run more frequently. It also opens up new opportunities, for example to improve prescoring without impacting the speed or frequency with which notes are scored."
All About Community Notes
Community Notes serve as a collaborative tool for users to provide additional context to posts that may be misleading.
Contributors can leave notes on any post, and those deemed helpful by a diverse group of users are publicly displayed alongside the content.
Despite X's promotion of Community Notes as a solution to combat disinformation, concerns have been raised about its effectiveness.
According to a report by WIRED, Community Notes have been criticized for failing to function as intended, being susceptible to manipulation by external groups, and lacking transparency regarding note approval processes.
Some individuals, including former employees and current contributors, argue that the system is inefficient and prone to misuse, potentially exacerbating the spread of misinformation on the platform.
One anonymous contributor, familiar with platform manipulation tactics, revealed to WIRED the alleged coordinated efforts to influence note ratings.
As a member of a decentralized volunteer movement known as the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO), this individual disclosed strategies a group of contributors employed to manipulate note ratings, raising questions about the integrity of the Community Notes system.
Read Also: Cybercriminals Are Abusing Verified Gold Accounts on X (Twitter) for Dark Web Selling, Scams - Study
X Warns Users that They Could Lose More Followers
In related news, X warned its users about a potential decrease in follower counts as the company embarks on a mission to eradicate spammers and bots from its network.
The company revealed its intention to undertake a "significant, proactive initiative" starting Thursday to purge accounts that violate X's rules against platform manipulation and spam.
Read more about this story here.
Related Article: Elon Musk Reveals X Will Release 'Major Update' to its Algorithm to Feature Smaller Accounts
