Twitter launches Community Notes feature that lets people add context to tweets

Users can vote on whether they find context provided by others ‘helpful’ and accurate

Twitter has rolled out its new “Community Notes” feature that lets users add context to tweets in an attempt to help combat misleading content on the platform.

The feature takes an open-source approach to debunk misinformation by allowing users to add “helpful and informative context to tweets”, the company said on Saturday.

Initially available only to users in the US, Twitter said the feature is now “visible around the world”.

“People everywhere can now see and rate notes, helping to ensure notes are helpful to those from a wide range of views,” the social media company explained.

Users can vote on whether they find the context provided by others “helpful” and accurate, or if it does not have relevance to the topic.

People on the platform can also sign up if they want to contribute to Community Notes and apply to be contributors for specific topics.

In his vision for the platform after taking over the company, new boss Elon Musk claimed Community Notes will be “a gamechanger for improving accuracy on Twitter”.

Since buying the company for $44bn in October, Mr Musk has also made several other changes to the platform in his vision for “Twitter 2.0”.

The company announced on Sunday that it will relaunch its $8 premium Twitter Blue service a month after a previous attempt failed.

Twitter originally offered its touted blue checkmark to the accounts of government entities, journalists, companies and celebrities that were verified by the platform.

But after buying the company, he launched a service that granted blue checks to anyone who paid $8 a month.

This caused the platform to descend into chaos with numerous scams and impersonations, including accounts that impersonated Mr Musk’s businesses SpaceX and Tesla.

The company soon suspended Twitter Blue just days after its launch.

It is now relaunching the service again at a cost of $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iPhone users.

Twitter announced that subscribers of the new service will see fewer ads, can post longer videos and will also have their tweets featured more prominently on the feeds of their followers.

Mr Musk also confirmed plans to increase the maximum length of tweets to 4,000 characters from the current 280-character limit.

However, it is unclear when this change may take effect and if it will be available to all users or just Twitter Blue subscribers.