Elon Musk’s X Launches Community Notes in India, Enabling User Contributions

Elon Musk’s social media platform, X (formerly known as Twitter), took a significant step on Thursday by extending the opportunity for Indian users to become contributors to its Community Notes feature. This expansion allows Indian users to actively participate in moderating content by rating and reviewing posts that may contain misinformation or misleading information. Community Notes was initially introduced in November 2022, but during its launch phase, moderators were selected exclusively from a limited number of countries. With India’s inclusion, the platform now boasts contributors from a total of 69 countries, marking a notable milestone in its global reach and accessibility.

The official announcement regarding the expansion of Community Notes contributors to India was made via a post from the Community Notes account. In the announcement, the platform warmly welcomed new contributors from India, expressing its commitment to gradually expanding its pool of contributors in the country. Additionally, it emphasized its dedication to maintaining quality standards to ensure that the notes provided by contributors are helpful to users from diverse perspectives. Elon Musk himself also acknowledged and shared the news of this significant development.

While the process of becoming a Community Notes contributor is relatively straightforward, interested users must meet certain eligibility criteria outlined by X. According to the platform’s guidelines, users seeking to become contributors must have been active members of the platform for at least six months and possess a verified phone number from a trusted carrier. Furthermore, they should have a clean record of adherence to platform rules without recent violations, and their account should not be associated with any other Community Notes accounts. These criteria aim to ensure the integrity and reliability of contributors within the Community Notes ecosystem, fostering a trusted and inclusive environment for content moderation.

Elon Musk-owned social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) expanded its Community Notes’ contributor positions to India on Thursday. With this development, Indian users can apply to become contributors to this open-source moderation tool to rate and review posts that are misleading or are spreading misinformation. Community Notes was officially introduced in November 2022 but at the time of launch, moderators were only selected from a few countries. Now, with the addition of India, the tool has contributors from 69 countries.

The announcement was made via a post by the official account of Community Notes. It said, “Welcome new contributors in India. Our first contributors are joining today, and we’ll be expanding over time. As always, we’ll monitor quality to ensure that notes are found helpful by people from different points of view.” Musk also posted about the development.

Becoming a Community Notes contributor is easy but users will have to fulfill some eligibility criteria. As per X guidelines, the user must have joined the platform at least six months ago, have a verified phone number from a trusted phone carrier, and have no recent platform rules violations. The account should not be associated with other Community Notes accounts.

Interestingly, before November 2022, Community Notes was known as Birdwatch. Birdwatch was introduced in 2020 as a moderation tool to identify and debunk misinformation and propaganda. However, after Musk took charge of the social media platform, he rebranded the tool and made it open-source. X states that the feature is not controlled by it and only users rate and review posts. Further, the platform publishes all the Community Notes data daily which can be downloaded for inspection.