Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has evaluated X's community note-taking feature, drawing comparisons between this tool and instances of "cryptocurrency value" within social media platforms.
In a post on his personal website dated August 16, Buterin expressed that X's community notes represent "the closest thing to instantiating 'cryptocurrency value'," as these notes are displayed or omitted through an open-source algorithm. pt has been seen in the mainstream world. X is launching Community Notes, a feature designed to allow contributors to provide background information by tweeting Rated Helpful, as part of its Birdwatch initiative in the US in October 2022.
While Buterin acknowledged the algorithm behind the feature isn't perfect, he found it to be remarkably close to embodying credible neutrality and offering utility even in contentious contexts. His analysis delved into the intricacies of the algorithm, highlighting its non-naive approach to determining comment helpfulness and its ability to detect significant political divergences in content. The feature also provides additional context for potentially misleading images used as previews for articles and helps combat COVID-19 misinformation.
Buterin stressed the importance of the "theorycel aesthetic" in distinguishing reliable protocols from less trustworthy structures that may appear effective but require reliance on a centralized actor or, worse, turn out to be outright hoaxes. He noted that the current feature landscape , exemplified by X's community notes, representing the closest approximation of hyperscale applications in the coming years, which he views as already delivering substantial value.
Buterin even hinted at the possibility that X's staff might have removed specific community annotations that went against Elon Musk's business interests, such as criticism of the Chinese government. Despite Buterin's criticism of "highly controversial behavior" on Twitter follow ing Musk's takeover, the X CEO praised his analysis. Recently, Musk has been in an online feud with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg over their plans for a potential mixed martial arts match.
