In software , a feature is an identifiable characteristic of a computer program .
57-479: Community Notes , formerly known as Birdwatch , is a feature on X (formerly Twitter) where contributors can add context such as fact-checks under a post, image or video. It is a community-driven content moderation program, intended to provide helpful and informative context, based on a crowd-sourced system. Notes are applied to potentially misleading content by an algorithm not based on majority rule , but instead agreement from users on different sides of
114-445: A computer mouse or other similar device, and the ability to run on multiple different Unix-like operating systems (e.g. Linux , AIX , BSD , and HP-UX ). Feature-rich describes a software system as having many options and capabilities. One mechanism for introducing feature-rich software to the user is the concept of progressive disclosure , a technique where features are introduced gradually as they become required, to reduce
171-445: A link between MMR vaccines and autism with it reaching the news media via press releases and a news conference getting widespread coverage despite the publication being flawed and the article later being debunked and retracted. Political polarization and democratic backsliding can be exacerbated by the media environment and its incentives towards sensationalism. Algorithms that elevate senstional and inflammatory content across
228-442: A "Needs your help" section of the interface. Other contributors then give their opinion on the usefulness of the note, identifying notes as "Helpful" or "Not Helpful". The contributor gets points if their note is validated, known as "Rating Impact", that reflects how helpful a contributors' ratings have been. X users are able to vote on whether they find notes helpful or not, but must apply to become contributors in order to write notes,
285-447: A 'vast audience of many thousands, even millions of passive individuals'. Television news is restricted to showing the scenes of crimes rather than the crime itself because of the unpredictability of events, whereas newspaper writers can always recall what they did not witness. On web-based platforms such as Facebook , Google and YouTube their respective algorithms are used to maximize advertising revenue by attracting and keeping
342-566: A Community Note, he claimed the program had been manipulated by state actors . In August 2020, development of Birdwatch was announced, initially described as a moderation tool. Twitter first launched the Birdwatch program in January 2021, intended as a way to debunk misinformation and propaganda, with a pilot program of 1,000 contributors, weeks after the January 6 United States Capitol attack . The aim
399-426: A Twitter spokeswoman described plans to scale up the program, with the focus on "ensuring that Birdwatch is something people find helpful and can help inform understanding". By September 2022, the program had expanded to 15,000 users. In October 2022, the most commonly published notes were related to COVID-19 misinformation based on historical usage. In November 2022, at the request of new owner Elon Musk , Birdwatch
456-441: A broadcaster one needed a license. In Western Europe sensationalism in the news also increased after the liberalization of television networks in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the late 1800s, falling costs in paper production and rising revenues in advertising in the U.S. led to a drastic rise in newspaper's circulation, which attracted the growing audiences that advertisers desired. One presumed goal of sensational reporting
513-516: A form of "opinion classification", determined by a vague alignment with the left and right-wing political spectrum. The machine-learning algorithm requires ratings from both sides of the spectrum in order to publish notes, that can have the intended effect of decreasing interaction with such content. Contributors are volunteers with access to an interface from which they have the ability to monitor tweets and replies that may be misleading. Notes in need of ratings by contributors are located under
570-462: A history of disagreeing. Rather than based on majority rule , the program's algorithm prioritizes notes that receive ratings from a "diverse range of perspectives". Programmer Vitalik Buterin has described the open-source algorithm as "insanely complicated". For a note to be published, a contributor must first propose a note under a tweet. The program assigns different values to contributors' ratings, categorising users with similar rating histories as
627-566: A note took on average 7 hours to appear, while others took 70 hours. The analysis however did show that over 50% of the posts received a note within 8 hours, with only a few taking longer than 2 days. The study included 100 tweets from 83 users who had signed up to X Premium in the past 4 months, along with 42 tweets from 25 accounts that were reinstated by Elon Musk, including Laura Loomer . The study also included Jackson Hinkle, who appeared multiple times. Another NewsGuard report found advertising appearing on 15 posts with Community Notes attached in
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#1732845453162684-515: A preference for their products or services to be reported positively in mass media, which can contribute to bias in news reporting in favor of media outlets protecting their profits and revenues, rather than reporting objectively about stated products and services. The more dependent news organizations are on advertising revenue a greater number of sensationalist news stories are produced is argued by Paul Hendriks Vettehen and Mariska Kleemans in Proving
741-426: A range of platforms including social media , Google , and others have received criticism as fueling division in society. This extends beyond sorting people into echo chambers and filter bubbles to include radicalization by showing more extreme content in order to boost engagement. Fact-checking websites, media literacy , better content moderation on social media, and legislation have been pursued to reduce
798-408: A similar manner to Misplaced Pages , and notes reportedly received tens of millions of views per day. Elon Musk , the owner of X, considers the program as a "gamechanger for combating wrong information" and having "incredible potential for improving information accuracy". In December 2023, after receiving a note on one of his posts, Musk thanked contributors for "jumping in the honey pot" after stating that
855-483: A small percentage of misinformation received a note, while published notes were among the most viral content. In July 2024, after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump , the Center for Countering Digital Hate published a report that of the 100 most popular conspiratorial posts on X about the shooting, only five Community Notes were published to counter the false claim. Software feature The term feature means
912-439: A software item (e.g., performance, portability, or functionality)". Although feature is typically used for a positive aspect of a software system, a software bug is also a feature but with negative value. The terminal emulator xterm has many notable features, including compatibility with the X Window System , the ability to emulate a VT220 and VT320 terminal with ANSI color, and the ability to input escape sequences using
969-416: A study of COVID-19 vaccine notes were deemed accurate 97% of the time. Critics have also highlighted how it has spread disinformation , is vulnerable to manipulation, and has been inconsistent in its application of notes, as well as its efforts in combating of misinformation. Elon Musk , the owner of X, considers the program as a gamechanger and having considerable potential. After a post by Musk received
1026-451: Is in the headlines of news articles. "Slam Journalism" is a term describing the rise of intense, emotionally charged language in headlines, notably the use of the word slam to mean criticize. The data scientist Cory Booker suggests that news agencies simply "[speak] the language that resonates with their audience best." Below are examples of such headlines, with the intense language highlighted in bold. David Berube considers
1083-426: Is noteworthy for using the symbols "@" and "$ " to highlight different variable scopes, which the developers claim improves code readability. Its developers also claim that one of its important features is a high amount of flexibility. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) defines feature in the (obsolete) standard for software test documentation IEEE 829 as a "distinguishing characteristic of
1140-452: Is to increase or sustain viewership or readership, from which media outlets can price their advertising higher to increase their profits based on higher numbers of viewers and/or readers. Sometimes this can lead to a lesser focus on objective journalism in favor of a profit motive , in which editorial choices are based upon sensational stories and presentations to increase advertising revenue . Additionally, advertisers tend to have
1197-471: The Financial Times noted was good for consumers but not for advertisers. This resulted in brands such as Apple , Samsung , Uber and Evony receiving notes on their adverts and being accused of false or misleading posts, advertisers deleting certain posts that received notes, as well as modifying content for future advertisements. A source is attached to the note so the information can be verified, in
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#17328454531621254-555: The Atlantic Council conducted an interactive study of Community Notes highlighting how the system operated slowly and inconsistently regarding Israel and Gaza misinformation. In one example, an image originally received a Community Note but continued to spread regardless receiving over 3 million views after a week. Hundreds of viral posts from the notes public database were analyzed and according to researchers fast-moving breaking news wasn't labeled. Across 400 posts of misinformation,
1311-520: The Unix philosophy was developed in the 1970s by Bell Labs employees working on the Unix operating system such as Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie . The philosophy can be summarized as: software programs should generally only complete one primary task and that "small is beautiful". Sensationalism In journalism and mass media , sensationalism is a type of editorial tactic. Events and topics in news stories are selected and worded to excite
1368-464: The backend of the database most notes remain unpublished, and that numerous contributors engage in " conspiracy -fueled" discussions. According to Musk, anyone trying to "weaponize Community Notes to demonetize people will be immediately obvious", due to the open-source nature of the code and data. Regarding the situation in Israel and Gaza , with the difficulty of identifying accurate information and
1425-852: The political spectrum . The program launched in 2021 and became widespread on X in 2023. Initially shown to U.S. users only, notes were popularized in March 2022 over misinformation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine followed by COVID-19 misinformation in October. Birdwatch was then rebranded to Community Notes and expanded in November 2022. As of November 2023, it had approximately 133,000 contributors; notes reportedly receive tens of millions of views per day, with its goal being to counter propaganda and misinformation . According to Mashable , most users do not see notes correcting such content as of November 2023. In May 2024,
1482-418: The suffix "-gate" . Sensationalism has also been blamed for the infotainment style of many news programs on radio and television. According to sociologist John Thompson , the debate of sensationalism used in the mass medium of broadcasting is based on a misunderstanding of its audience, especially the television audience. Thompson explains that the term 'mass' (which is connected to broadcasting) suggests
1539-442: The " Overton window " online thanks to algorithms replacing traditional gatekeepers of journalism. C.P. Chandrasekhar argues that news outlets are at a higher risk of releasing content that is false because of how quickly news is circulated through the internet in order to capitalize on those views and clicks for profit. Joe Sommerlad criticized algorithms used by Google News for not promoting more trustworthy sources. One of
1596-452: The 2023 Israel-Hamas war or failed to do so. One study by NBC News found that in the case of a fake White House press release claiming the destruction of the St. Porphyrius Orthodox Church – a week before the destruction – only 8% of posts had notes published, 26% had unpublished notes, while the majority had no proposed notes. Analysis from NewsGuard of 250 of the most-engaged posts, spreading
1653-589: The House and presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy ; U.S. representatives , senators , and Australian ministers ; as well as X owner Elon Musk multiple times, that in February 2024 led to Musk arguing with the program. The feature does not directly mention fact-checking but instead indicates that "readers added context". They can also note when an image is digitally altered or AI-generated . X allows contributors to add Community Notes to adverts, which
1710-549: The Obvious? What Sensationalism Contributes to the Time Spent on News Video . The Watergate scandal has been credited by some with creating distrust in government and opening the door for a new business tactic for the media that resulted in the spread of negative, dishonest and misleading news coverage of American politics; such examples include the labeling of a large number of political scandals, regardless of their importance, with
1767-712: The Soviet Union, strong censorship resulted in only "positive occurrences" being reported on, with the news looking significantly different than in the West. In the United States, modern sensationalism in the news increased after the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 by the Federal Communications Commission which required broadcasters when showing one partisan view to show another and in order to be
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1824-460: The ability to view notes attached to tweets and rate them, with a pilot of 10,000 contributors. On average, contributors were noting 43 times a day in 2022 prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine . This then increased to 156 on the day of the invasion, estimated to be a very small portion of the misleading posts on the platform. By March 1, only 359 of 10,000 contributors had proposed notes in 2022, while
1881-542: The actions of individuals and small groups of people, the content of which is often insignificant and irrelevant to the macro-level day-to-day events occurring globally. In A History of News , Mitchell Stephens notes sensationalism can be found in the Ancient Roman gazette Acta Diurna , where official notices and announcements were presented daily on public message boards, the perceived content of which spread with enthusiasm in illiterate societies. Sensationalism
1938-643: The attached notes. In May 2024, John W. Ayers , a behavioural scientist from the University of California, San Diego , published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association based on fact-checking of COVID-19 vaccines . In the sample of 205 Community Notes, according to Ayers and other researches, the information was accurate in 96% of notes, and 87% of sources were of high quality. The lead author, according to Bloomberg UK , stated that only
1995-447: The attention of users. This business model results in sensationalist content often being prioritized as algorithms often predict that it will get the highest amount of engagement. When trying to cater to younger audiences, news stories that are more sensational and unusual will often drown out stories that may be considered less exciting but more significant. In Mass Media and American Politics , Doris A. Graber and Johanna Dunaway give
2052-472: The effectiveness of the system in the early stages of the program, stating that Birdwatch was never supposed to replace the curation team, but instead intended to complement it. Another former employee said it was "an imperfect replacement for Trust and Safety staff". In April 2022, a study presented by MIT researchers subsequently found users overwhelming prioritised political content, even though 80% were correctly considered misleading. Wired noted that in
2109-486: The example of how the Chicago Sun Times will give 20 times more space to sports in comparison to the state government. Covering singular news stories that are considered dramatic can lead to other stories being obscured. In a 24-hour news cycle , there will be instances where there is little news happening along with no developments in stories that are considered important and because of this they will need to fill
2166-858: The greatest number of readers and viewers. This style of news reporting encourages biased or emotionally loaded impressions of events rather than neutrality , and may cause a manipulation to the truth of a story. Sensationalism may rely on reports about generally insignificant matters and portray them as a major influence on society, or biased presentations of newsworthy topics, in a trivial, or tabloid manner, contrary to general assumptions of professional journalistic standards . Some tactics include being deliberately obtuse, appealing to emotions , being controversial , intentionally omitting facts and information , being loud and self-centered , and acting to obtain attention. Trivial information and events are sometimes misrepresented and exaggerated as important or significant, and often include stories about
2223-699: The latter being restricted by "Rating Impact" as well as the Community Notes guidelines. Since 2023, Community Notes are often attached to shared articles missing context, misleading advertisements or political tweets with false arguments, from content receiving widespread attention. Notes have appeared on posts by government accounts and various politicians: the White House , the Federal Bureau of Investigation , and U.S. President Joe Biden ; UK Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss ; former U.S. speakers of
2280-579: The most common unsubstantiated claims about the Israel-Hamas war and viewed more than 100 million times, failed to receive notes 68% of the time. The report found Community Notes were "inconsistently applied to top myths relating to the conflict." The fact-checking website Snopes discovered three posts from verified users , who had shared a video of a hospitalized man from Gaza with false captions claiming it showed " crisis actors ", had failed to receive any Community Notes after 24 hours. Bellingcat found
2337-409: The most prominent and most covered news topics is crime being represented disproportionately to other social problems. Most often what is covered is the "accounts of the commission of crime and law-enforcement activities." A lesser amount but still significant level is given to court proceedings and the least related to corrections giving the public a limited understand of the criminal justice system and
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2394-522: The negative impacts of algorithms and sensational media. When American public television news came about in the mid-20th century it came about in part in response to the commercial news stations having sensationalized news prioritized above that of "serious reporting". Some have argued tha different algorithms and platform incentives are needed to reduce modern sensationalism both online and among politicians reacting to those online incentives. Andrew Leonard describes Pol.is as one possible solution to
2451-728: The news. The more modern forms of sensationalism developed in the course of the nineteenth century in parallel with the expansion of print culture in industrialized nations. A genre of British literature, "sensation novels," became in the 1860s an example of how the publishing industry could capitalize on surprising narrative to market serialized fiction in periodicals. The attention-grasping rhetorical techniques found in sensation fiction were also employed in articles on science, modern technology, finance, and in historical accounts of contemporary events. Sensationalism in nineteenth century could be found in popular culture, literature, performance, art history, theory, pre-cinema, and early cinema. In
2508-518: The number of unknown factors, MIT professor David Rand said "what I expect the crowd to produce is a lot of noise", regarding the crowd-sourced system. A contributor otherwise described that the system is "not really scalable for the amount of media that's being consumed or posted in any given day", while X states that the program is having a "significant impact on tackling disinformation on the platform". In October 2023, Community Notes experienced multi-day delays in publishing notes on misinformation in
2565-564: The platform. In October 2023, Elon Musk announced that posts "corrected" by Community Notes would no longer be eligible for ad revenue in order to "maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensationalism " and in order to discourage the spread of misinformation and disinformation on the platform. The move was criticised by some users and applauded by others. As of November 2023, it has expanded to over 50 countries, with approximately 133,000 contributors. The Community Notes algorithm publishes notes based on agreement from contributors who have
2622-440: The potential confusion caused by displaying a wealth of features at once. Sometimes, feature-rich is considered a negative attribute. The terms feature creep , software bloat , and featuritis refer to software that is overly feature-rich. This type of excessive inclusion of features is in some cases a result of design by committee . To counteract the tendency of software developers to add additional, unnecessary features,
2679-442: The program spread false information, in reference to Taylor Swift 's bodyguard due to misinformation. Wired has documented that Community Notes is susceptible to disinformation, after a graphic Hamas video shared by Donald Trump Jr. was falsely flagged as being a year old, but was instead found to be part of the recent conflict. The original note was later replaced with another citing the report from Wired . In November 2023,
2736-496: The same for software as it does for any kind of system. For example, the British Royal Navy's HMS Dreadnought (1906) was considered an important milestone in naval technology because of its advanced features that did not exist in pre-dreadnought battleships . Feature also applies to computer hardware . In the early history of computers, devices such as Digital Equipment Corporation 's PDP-7 minicomputer (created in 1964)
2793-473: The social contexts of crime. With science news, the press release may be relied upon heavily, which can exaggerate or spin the findings. One theory for this practice, in addition to time constraints, is that journalists do not access academic articles as much since many are behind paywalls. One example of sensationalism in science news was in 1998 when Andrew Wakefield published a study in The Lancet showing
2850-467: The system had been "gamed by state actors ", with the intent of detecting so-called bad actors. In July 2024, as part of a pilot program , X announced the ability for eligible users to request Community Notes for certain posts, that would be directed to "Top Writers" of the software. The threshold of five requests within 24 hours would determine a note being published. Former head of Twitter's Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth , has since expressed concern over
2907-428: The time by sharing a story that is less so about actual news and more intended to keep the audience's attention. In news markets where there is more competition the more likely a certain news outlet will be to produce sensationalist stories as a way to compete with other outlets. One feature of sensationalistic news is the intensification of language used in the article. The most common use of sensationalist language
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#17328454531622964-467: The use of headlines to be the primary way sensationalism manifests in media, by creating teasers that use emotion to try and capture the attention of an audience even if the headline exaggerates or is otherwise misleading. In YouTube videos, the thumbnail image of a video can similarly mislead audiences. The use of fearmongering is sometimes used by media outlets as well to gain attention to their content. Zeynep Tufecki argues that it's easier to shift
3021-439: The week of November 13, 2023, indicating that "misinformation super-spreaders " may still be eligible for ad revenue, despite posts with notes attached being ineligible according to Musk. On November 30, a Mashable investigation found most users never see published notes, with examples of notes seen by less than 1% to 5% of users who viewed misinformation content, and overall, a disproportionate number of views on posts compared to
3078-608: Was noted for having a wealth of features, such as being the first version of the PDP minicomputer series to use wire wrap , as well as being the first to use the proprietary DEC Flip-Chip module which was invented in the same year. Feature also applies to concepts such as a programming language. The Python programming language is well-known for its feature of using whitespace characters (spaces and tabs) instead of curly braces to indicate different blocks of code. Another similar high-level, object oriented programming language, Ruby ,
3135-664: Was rebranded to Community Notes , taking an open-source approach to deal with misinformation, and expanded to Europe and countries outside of the US. Community Notes was then extended to include notes on misleading images in May 2023 and in September 2023 further extended to videos, but only for a group of power-users referred to as "Top Writers". Twitter subsequently ended the ability to report misleading posts, instead relying exclusively on Community Notes, with contributors proposing over 21,200 notes on
3192-471: Was to "build Birdwatch in the open, and have it shaped by the Twitter community." In November 2021, Twitter updated the Birdwatch moderation tool to limit the visibility of contributors' identities by creating aliases for their accounts, in an attempt to limit bias towards the author of notes. Twitter then expanded access to notes made by the Birdwatch contributors in March 2022, giving a randomized set of US users
3249-411: Was used in books of the 16th and 17th century, to teach moral lessons . According to Stephens, sensationalism brought the news to a new audience when it became aimed at the lower class , who had less of a need to accurately understand politics and the economy , to occupy them in other matters. Through sensationalism, he claims, the audience was further educated and encouraged to take more interest in
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