Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Feed Link: https://www.engadget.com/
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Title: X tests... centrism

Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2025 17:09:39 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-tests...

Whatever your opinion of X, you probably don't think of it as a platform
known for fostering agreement. The company is apparently trying to change
that, though, and is in the early stages of an experiment that aims to boost
posts that are widely agreeable to the site's users.

With a new test, described by X as an "experimental pilot," the app will
begin asking a small subset of users what they think of a particular post in
their timeline. A screenshot shared by X shows that people can respond with a
range of positive or negative opinions, like "it makes a meaningful point,"
"it's funny" or "it doesn't interest me." X will then use those responses to
help it "develop an open source algorithm that could effectively identify
posts liked by people from different perspectives."

The concept is somewhat similar to Community Notes, which already attempts to
take differing perspectives into account when ranking fact checks. The new
program, though, isn't about surfacing fact-checked content but boosting
posts that are likely to be, well, liked.

X's post about the test suggests it has lofty goals. "This experimental new
feature seeks to uncover ideas, insights, and opinions that bridge
perspectives," the company wrote. "It can bring awareness to what resonates
broadly. It could motivate people to share those ideas in the first place."

Whether an open source algorithm based on data about users' likes can
actually accomplish that, though, is unclear. A report published today by Pew
Research shows that there is still a significant partisan divide in terms of
how X is perceived and experienced by users. Overcoming that could be more
difficult than boosting a few extra posts.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-tests...

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