Is it a useful complement that may help in addressing numerous types of misinformation and misrepresentation, whereas additionally enabling customers to higher spotlight considerations in posts? Positively.

The problem lies someplace in between, as Elon seems to be to push Notes as X’s primary security internet to deal with all forms of considerations, whereas analysts proceed to spotlight flaws within the Group Notes system, which is resulting in extra deceptive content material being amplified within the app.

Although it will assist.

Right now, X has introduced that it’s going to now distribute extra notifications to customers who’ve engaged with a publish that’s later had a Group Observe appended.

As per X:

“Generally a word seems on a publish after you’ve seen it. To assist, Group Notes sends notifications to individuals who have engaged with a publish that later receives a word. We’ve now scaled it as much as deal with even probably the most seen and highly-engaged posts, so extra of you may be (and are already) seeing these.”

This can be a good addition, which can assist to in any case increase questions amongst X customers in regards to the content material that they’ve seen, replied to, Favored, and many others.

If a publish, for instance, gave them the impression that one thing had occurred, when it truly hadn’t, these sorts of follow-ups might be very efficient in slowing the unfold of false reviews, which might additionally embody deepfakes, AI-generated photographs, and many others.

There’s a lot to love about Group Notes on this respect. However once more, the issue is just not a lot that the Notes are overly unreliable, nor that they don’t serve a goal. It’s greater than X is placing an excessive amount of religion within the course of being the savior for its misinformation points, by letting customers determine what’s true and what’s not, with out X administration stepping in, or at the very least, not stepping in on the identical stage that Twitter’s previous well being and security staff had been.

However numerous this comes all the way down to notion. As per its “Twitter Recordsdata” inner exploration shortly after the corporate modified fingers, Elon and Co. outlined what they perceived to be huge corruption in info movement, because the previous Twitter staff sought to suppress sure info on the behest of presidency officers.

However that’s probably not what the paperwork confirmed. What the insights did present is that Twitter’s well being and security staff labored with numerous official authorities to make sure that it remained conscious of associated considerations. A few of these it actioned, most it didn’t, however the reviews demonstrated what most would view as a accountable method to managing key discussions, and the amplification of such, by means of official partnerships that might have some bearing on future technique.

The issue is, this additionally concerned a problem that Elon himself believes was a conspiracy idea, within the COVID pandemic.

In coping with COVID, the Twitter staff made choices primarily based on the perfect info it had on the time, and looking back, a few of these calls could not have been appropriate. However that’s looking back, and within the midst of an unprecedented pandemic, the staff have been doing what they may. However that’s all of the proof that Elon and his staff wanted to flag this as mass censorship, marking Twitter as a automobile for “accepted narratives”, which he’s now decided that X won’t ever be.

Which is why he needs Group Notes to work, in order that some info deemed unfaithful, false, deceptive, a few of that can nonetheless get by means of. As a result of you possibly can’t belief the mainstream dialogue, however you possibly can belief the folks, in Musk’s view.

The issue with that’s Group Notes doesn’t actually work in highlighting numerous misinformation as a result of it’s primarily based on political consensus, that means that individuals from each side of the political spectrum have to agree on notes earlier than they’re displayed.

On a variety of extremely divisive points, that settlement won’t ever come. Like COVID, the struggle in Israel, the struggle in Ukraine, border safety, and many others. A few of these are hardline subjects, that nobody’s going to concede. So related Notes are by no means proven, and by no means seen, resulting in broad circulation of deceptive claims, primarily based on X’s personal system.

Is that a greater end result than having X’s personal staff step in? It’s unattainable to say, however I do really feel that, in some unspecified time in the future, that is going to result in important points consequently.

So whereas there are good factors to the method, and there’s a particular worth in Group Notes, and notifications like these new retrospective prompts, the method is just not what Elon and Co. suppose. Which might be problematic.

Conceptually, there’s a logic there, and different approaches, like Reddit’s up and downvotes system, have offered related outcomes.   

However Group Notes is unlikely to be the defend that Musk appears to consider, or wish to consider, as he reforms the app.