X (ex-Twitter): messages corrected by the community will no longer be monetized, Musk announces

2023-10-30 15:38:37

Accused of promoting disinformation on his social network X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk announced Sunday evening that messages corrected by the community will no longer be able to benefit from the monetization system which rewards the most viral content. “Slight change to the monetization program: any post corrected by community ratings becomes ineligible for the revenue sharing program. The idea is to maximize the incentive for accuracy rather than sensationalism,” the billionaire tweeted.

Making a slight change to creator monetization:

Any posts that are corrected by @CommunityNotes become ineligible for revenue share.

The idea is to maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensationalism.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2023

Since the end of April, Elon Musk has allowed users to offer paid subscriptions, with reserved content. And since this summer, X has offered Internet users the opportunity to comment or clarify questionable messages by posting “community notes”.

To prevent a potential perverse effect of his new strategy, Elon Musk continued in a second message: “It is important to note that any attempt to use community ratings as a weapon to demonetize people will immediately be highlighted, because all the code and data is open source.” In other words, its system will be able to identify non-legitimate corrections.

Fake news about the Israel-Hamas conflict

Elon Musk has been accused for months of letting false information invade the network, in particular since he drastically reduced moderation teams and made the blue “certification” checkmark a charge, previously reserved for verified users. These paying users see their posts highlighted by the algorithm. These reforms have only accentuated the torrent of false information circulating about the conflict between Israel and Hamas, according to experts.

An analysis by the international platform against disinformation NewsGuard indicates that users “certified” on

“Verified accounts on more commitment.

Paid certification “has proven to be a boon for bad actors sharing misinformation,” NewsGuard adds. “They benefit from the credibility associated with the blue tick, prestigious under the old system, and can reach a wider audience.”

Since the Hamas attack on October 7, the platform has been flooded with violent videos and images, many of which are fake, dating back several years or coming from different locations. Their authors may display blue checkmarks even though they are fake media or fake organizational accounts.