Asked for her response on Meta’s decision to employ a community notes model, rather than use fact-checkers, X CEO Linda Yaccarino had a simple initial response: “How cool is that?”
Rather than using staff fact-checkers, the community notes model will allow users to flag certain statements or topics, while allowing broader discussions of topics such as immigration, gender identity and gender. The model follows the model recently employed by X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I think it’s really exciting when you think about community notes being good for the world,” Yaccarino said on stage at CES in Las Vegas Tuesday. “It couldn’t be more validating than to see that Mark and Meta realized that.”
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Yaccarino called the community notes model the “most effective, fastest fact-checking, without bias” and added that it “inspires great behavior” on the platform.
“When a post is noted, it’s dramatically shared less,” she said. “So that’s the power of community notes, and we say, Mark, Meta, welcome to the party.”
Asked if she believed Meta’s decision was really about free speech, as X has said its decision was, Yaccarino said “absolutely.”
“I think that people all around the world have spoken,” she said.
As part of the 30-minute discussion with journalist Catherine Herridge, Yaccarino was also asked about X owner Elon Musks’s upcoming position as upcoming co-lead of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
“We should all be rooting for the overwhelming success of D.O.G.E. I would expect other countries to follow,” she said. “I would imagine that D.O.G.E. and the success of D.O.G.E. will be talked about as probably one of the single biggest unifiers that will bring this country together.”
Asked about the recent controversy of Musk’s posts about a decades-old child sexual abuse scandal in Britain, during which Musk has been resurfacing the scandal and attacking members of the government on X, which has caused tensions and included inaccuracies, Yaccarino suggested its part of the platform’s push for free speech and compared it to publications stating their own points of view.
“If not for X, where would those girls and future girls be so? So I say more, not less,” Yaccarino said.
Yaccarino also promoted the importance of X as a platform for independent journalists, through its creator revenue share program, while bemoaning the state of legacy media.
“We know the future of news is not legacy media. Legacy media news has become almost like a fan service to make sure that you’re speaking to a niche audience to make your budget. And what we want to do is make sure that we provide a great place for that journalistic curiosity to return,” she said.
Amid the discussion, Yaccarino added that she believes the platform will see more engagement in 2025 and will be rolling out a tool for advertisers that promotes their campaigns when a certain topic heats up on the platform. While many advertisers left the platform after Musk acquired the company, X has expanded its partnership with big brands, including the NFL.
