Twitter is testing Community Notes for images

Twitter is experimenting with a new feature that might make it simpler for users to recognize potentially “misleading media” as AI-generated images and video grow increasingly prevalent on the platform. The company is testing out Community Notes for media, which will use the website’s user-generated fact-checks on certain images and videos.

Community Notes allows contributors with high ratings to use this feature to add notes to images shared within tweets. Like notes on tweets, the labels might provide additional “context” for images, such as stating whether a photo was altered or made using generative AI.

According to Twitter, the function could also take into account the problem of such photos becoming viral. It is intended for notes to automatically display on “recent and future” copies of the same image, even if it is shared by different users in new tweets. Twitter acknowledges that it will take time to refine its image matching, though.

“It’s currently intended to err on the side of precision when matching images, which means it likely won’t match every image that looks like a match to you,” the company shared. “We will work to tune this to expand coverage while avoiding erroneous matches.”

It’s also important to note that Community Notes’ past performance has not been flawless. Community Note authors have stated that while the function occasionally leads to sophisticated fact checks or the debunking of misleading claims, it “is not impervious to errors or perpetuating common misconceptions.”

Twitter is currently only testing notes for media for tweets including a single image, but the company claims it hopes to eventually expand the capability to tweets containing multiple photos and videos.

Twitter isn’t the only medium that has to deal with the proliferation of false information and the emergence of generative and AI. Additionally, Google recently unveiled tools that allow users to follow an image’s progress through search results, which may enable users to determine whether or not a photo is real.