Twitter has rolled out an algorithm update that identifies more low-quality Community Notes, which will result in the suspension of contributor status for those who write unhelpful annotations to provide further clarification and context on tweets.
Twitter said that those users will have to earn back their "contributor" status, as Elon Musk promotes community-based moderation as the future of the company.
The algorithm update will help more low quality notes get identified, more contributors who consistently write low quality notes have their writing ability locked (and have to earn it back) and contributor helpfulness scores improve with more scoring data, said the company. A small group of writers in the United States, Canada, Ghana and the United Kingdom now have access to take notes as part of the initial testing phase. Twitter says Notes can be read on and off Twitter by people in most countries. Users who are part of the testing phase will get access to a new “Write” tab, which is where they can write and access all of their Notes. These users will also have a new “Notes” tab in their profile that holds their published work to make it easy for their followers to find their long-form content.
"One of contributors' top frustrations is seeing and rating low quality notes. We just rolled out an algorithm update that identifies more low quality notes - saving contributors time, and improving the average quality of notes (and note writers)," the company said in a tweet thread.
The latest update will better identify and lock out more contributors who aren't writing helpful content.
"Contributors can write notes that propose context to be added to a Tweet. Or they can write notes explaining to other contributors why a Tweet isn't misleading, and therefore, shouldn't have context added to it," said the microblogging platform.
Twitter VP of product, Keith Coleman, clarified in a tweet that "low-quality" notes are rated as such if a "wide range of people" agree that a particular note is not helpful.
"This prevents one-sided outcomes," Coleman said.
Twitter announced today that it has begun testing “Notes,” a way to write and publish long-form content on the social media platform. The official announcement comes a day after TechCrunch reported that the feature would be launching soon.
Twitter says Notes can be read on and off Twitter by people in most countries. Users who are part of the testing phase will get access to a new “Write” tab, which is where they can write and access all of their Notes. These users will also have a new “Notes” tab in their profile that holds their published work to make it easy for their followers to find their long-form content.
With the new feature, users will be able to create articles using rich formatting and uploaded media, which can then be tweeted and shared with followers upon publishing. Users will have the option to embed photos, videos, GIFs and tweets into their Notes. Like tweets, Notes will have their own link and can be tweeted, retweeted, sent in DM’s, liked and bookmarked.
Twitter Notes has the potential to change how some people use Twitter to share their more in-depth thoughts and ideas. The new feature could be particularly useful for those users who infrequently publish article-length content and don’t want the hassle of setting up and maintaining their own blog or website. It’s also worth noting that the feature marks one of Twitter’s more significant changes since doubling the character count from 140 to 280 characters.
The new feature will address situations where it can be difficult to follow threads by allowing users to put all the text into a Note. Notes will also address the situation where users had to post screenshots of their Notes app in order to tweet a large portion of text.
The introduction of Twitter Notes may pose some competition with long-form blogging platforms, like WordPress or Medium, the latter coincidentally developed by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. If Twitter decides to integrate newsletters into Notes, the feature could potentially compete with popular platforms like Substack.
Twitter also announced today that it’s launching a new Twitter Write team that is focused on building tools for readers. The company is merging its newsletter subscriptions into Twitter Write, which is now the brand that it’s using to encompass its long-form writing efforts, including Notes and newsletters. The Write team will be focused on improving the Twitter experience for writers. The social media giant notes that its definition of writers includes journalists, bloggers, newsletter publishers, comedians, content creators, social media community managers, poets, screenwriters and more.
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