Are X Community Notes a Bridge to ‘Crypto Values?’

Amid turbulence within the X micro-blogging platform, formerly known as Twitter, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin delved deep into its new ‘Community Notes’ feature. In his recent blog post, Buterin noted that the tool might offer “crypto values.”

Buterin emphasized, “The last two years of Twitter X have been tumultuous, to say the least.”

Community Notes, as Buterin describes, “is a fact-checking tool.” The tool occasionally adds context notes to tweets to combat misinformation.

The feature has become especially relevant for politically contentious topics. In this regard, Buterin notes, “And both in my view, and in the view of many people across the political spectrum I talk to, the notes, when they appear, are informative and valuable.”

Although Community Notes is not a “crypto project,” Buterin perceives it as the closest representation of “crypto values.”

“Community Notes are not written or curated by some centrally selected set of experts; rather, they can be written and voted on by anyone,” Buterin writes. The Ethereum co-founder also determines that an open-source algorithm available for anyone to inspect resonates with the essence of credible neutrality that the crypto community holds.

Buterin elaborated on the participation dynamics, saying if users’ Twitter account meets certain criteria, they can sign up to participate in Community Notes. And once accepted, users can rate the existing notes.

Encouraging Consensus

Sponsored

Sponsored

A significant element of Community Notes is its unique scoring algorithm, according to Buterin. He stated,

“Unlike simpler algorithms… the Community Notes rating algorithm explicitly attempts to prioritize notes that receive positive ratings from people across a diverse range of perspectives.”

This essentially means that the mechanism actively encourages consensus when the viewpoints are diverse. In return, it rewards shared understanding.

Buterin also casts a critical eye on the complexity of the algorithm. He drew an implementational comparison of its “academic paper version.” He argues if Community Notes truly combats polarization any better than straightforward voting algorithms. An analytical perspective, he implies, might reveal more in this respect.

He noted, “Looking at the algorithm abstractly, it’s hard to tell.”

Meanwhile, Buterin also recognizes the value of algorithmic transparency, even though it isn’t a fully decentralized social media solution. In his words, “It’s the closest that very-large-scale applications are going to get within the next couple of years.”

X continues to find its footing post-rebranding and amidst spam concerns. And tools like Community Notes could be a new bridge to tackle some problems. Especially when some hacking incidents targeting crypto industry personalities, including Uniswap CEO and founder Hayden Adams, asks for more security.

Buterin seems optimistic that a feature like Community Notes can embed more decentralized, crypto-based values into mainstream platforms.