YouTube, which began testing crowdsourced fact-checking in June, is now expanding the experiment by inviting users to try the feature. Likened to the Community Notes accountability method introduced by Twitter and continued under X, YouTube’s as yet unnamed feature lets users provide context and corrections to posts that might be misleading or false. “You can sign up to submit notes on videos you find inaccurate or unclear,” YouTube explains, adding that “after submission, your note is reviewed and rated by others.” Notes widely rated as helpful “may be published and appear below the video.”

For the time being, the community fact-checking only works on mobile, YouTube says on a support page that explains how to use the feature.

“As for best practices, it’s suggested that notes cite sources (but is written in a user’s own words), are easy to understand, are neutral (avoiding personal opinions), offer context that isn’t already readily available, and directly address a claim that is made in a video or its title,” 9to5Google reports.

The feature was announced in June by YouTube parent Google, generating press coverage centered around misinformation that circulated during the 2020 election cycle, and concerns that the 2024 election could be even more problematic as a result of the rise in generative AI.

9to5Google notes that “it’s unclear how widely this new pilot program will be available, or when this feature will roll out more widely to the general public.” For now, it’s only testing in English in the U.S.

TechSpot points out that YouTube’s “initial pilot will involve third-party evaluators, not users, rating the helpfulness of these notes, which will help train the systems,” and will be limited to channel-owners.

“The select group of test subjects will provide feedback to YouTube to help the platform determine which notes are ‘helpful,’ ‘somewhat helpful’ or ‘unhelpful,’ before rolling out its community notes feature to the public,” Engadget informs, citing back to the official YouTube Blog.