Twitter’s Birdwatch is now Community Notes: What is it, how it works and what Elon has to say about it

Birdwatch, Twitter’s community fact-check programme, has been renamed to Community Notes. The programme enables participants on the social media platform “to collaboratively add context to potentially misleading tweets.” Twitter says they think it’s a “simpler, more intuitive name.”
The announcement comes via Community Notes’ Twitter handle in a thread of tweets. One of the tweets in the thread includes an image which shows “a really early design mockup from years ago” suggesting that the Birdwatch programme’s very first name was Community Notes.
“This isn’t just a random new name. It’s actually Birdwatch’s very first name. Before there was a Birdwatch, before there was anyone building this thing, there was a design mockup envisioning the idea, and you know what it was called?” the tweet read.

Contributors can find Community Notes instead of Birdwatch in their Twitter menu.
What are Twitter Community Notes
Community Notes (formerly Birdwatch) was a pilot project which Twitter started with the aim to curtail misinformation and “create a better-informed world.” In this programme, a select few participants can add, in a collaborative manner, notes to bring helpful context to tweets that they think are potentially misleading.
Community Notes is currently only available in the US. As per the sign-up page on Twitter, the company plans on expanding the feature to other locations “as soon as we can.”

Community Notes rules
Twitter says that the Community Notes do not represent the company’s viewpoint and cannot be edited/ modified, removed or labelled by its teams “unless it is found to be violating the Twitter Rules, Terms of Service, or our Privacy Policy.” A contributor can be removed from accessing Community Notes in case of failure to abide by the rules.
How does Twitter Community Notes work
If you are in the US, you can be a part of the contributors’ group by signing up for the programme. You won’t get note writing privilege as soon as you join, instead, you have to earn it by first submitting ratings of other notes. These ratings – Helpful and Not Helpful – must turn out to agree with the wider consensus.
Contributors can also “lose the privilege by consistently writing notes rated not helpful by their peers.”
Participants of the programme can leave notes on any tweet and if enough of them “from different points of view rate that note as helpful, the note will be publicly shown on a tweet.” Only contributors and the author of the tweet can see the notes. In case a tweet author disagrees that a Community Note provides important context about his/ her particular tweet, he/ she can request additional review.
What Elon Musk has to say on Community Notes
Recently, the new Twitter owner and co-founder Jack Dorsey exchanged a few words on the platform over the name of this feature. Musk said that Birdwatch “gives me creeps” to which Dorsey replied, “Community notes is the most boring Facebook name ever.”
The Tesla CEO has already endorsed the programme in a tweet during his Community Notes-Birdwatch name-game with Dorsey on Saturday (November 7). “Birdwatch (soon to be known as Community Notes) has incredible potential for improving information accuracy on Twitter!” he tweeted.
Furthermore, Musk reportedly told advertisers in a live audio chat on Wednesday (November 9) that the Community Notes programme was “a game-changer” and the company was going “pedal to the metal” in developing it – hinting it’s here to stay.