Keith Coleman, VP of Product at X, explains why conventional moderation and institutional fact-checkers failed before the creation of Community Notes.
Opinion
Coleman: Musk's 'fork in the road' email was a great downsizing approach
“I thought that was a great approach to taking a large company and getting it down to people who are really excited about, you know, working together on, on a mission.”
Insight
Coleman: Extreme viewpoints are necessary data for Community Notes to find broad consensus
“Our view is it's actually, we want to have all of humanity here, because if we have all of humanity, we can, we then have the data to understand what notes will be helpful to actual humanity. You know, we can better model that better or better understand and b…”
Insight
Coleman: Pseudonymity makes online contributors more willing to cross partisan boundaries
“People are actually more willing to cross partisan boundaries when they are anonymous or pseudonymous than when they are under their real name.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Coleman: Biggest shift from legacy moderation to Community Notes happened under X
“The biggest change there happened in X. The biggest changes prior to that were just the decision to put this out there and you know, and, Have it be operating at, you know, in public at first us wide scale. But yeah, then the big, the bigger switches came in t…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Coleman: Community Notes rejected using journalists to avoid curated editorial decisions
“Initially, some people inside the company were suggesting like, Hey, why don't you have journalists or, you know, some select group be the first participants, but Very specifically, we're like, no, that's like, we're trying to move away from the idea of curate…”
Disclosure
Coleman: Community Notes escalates decisions directly to Elon Musk
“If we need, need something or have a question on something, I talked to Elon and it was, you know, it was like that from the beginning. It's like that now.”