Elon Musk, the CEO of X (formerly Twitter), announced on Sunday that creators whose posts have been corrected or amended by the platform's "community notes" feature will no longer be able to monetize those posts. Musk stated that this change is intended to prioritize accuracy over sensationalism.
The community notes feature is a crowdsourced fact-checking program that allows users to add context or correct information below a post. Musk believes that by restricting monetization for posts that have been edited by community notes, it will incentivize users to avoid posting inaccurate or false information.
However, this change has received criticism from some users. They argue that the community notes program is used for more than just correcting incorrect information. Some users questioned whether the restrictions will apply to posts that have context added, even if there was nothing wrong with the original post.
On the other hand, some users supported Musk's decision and suggested additional punishments for users whose posts are frequently corrected. These suggestions included publicly displaying the number of corrections on their profile or reducing the visibility of their posts through X's algorithm.
As of the time of writing, Musk had not responded to any user questions about the change.
The community notes feature was launched in 2021 as a way to debunk misleading tweets. In July, X started a revenue sharing program that allows creators to be compensated for the ads that appear in their reply threads. However, to qualify for monetization, users must meet certain criteria, including subscribing to Twitter Blue and having more than 5 million tweet impressions each month.
This change to the program comes at a time when X is facing scrutiny over its handling of misinformation since Musk acquired the platform. Earlier this month, X made a change to remove article headlines from shared news links, which led some users to post misinformation alongside legitimate news articles.
The European Union is currently investigating Musk and X for their handling of violent content and disinformation related to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The EU has warned that X has the highest prevalence of misinformation and the biggest ratio of disinformation posters.
Overall, Elon Musk's decision to restrict monetization for corrected or amended posts on X has generated mixed reactions from users. While some support the move to prioritize accuracy, others have raised concerns about potential limitations on context and the impact on creators.