Part II: Adult Consent Form

Section 1

Title of the research: Evaluating Community Notes on X


Principal investigators:
Jonathan Mayer, Department of Computer Science and School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Manoel Horta Ribeiro, Department of Computer Science, Princeton University

Your informed consent is being sought for research. Participation in the research is voluntary.

Purpose of the research: Community Notes is a collection of features on X (formerly Twitter) that allow users to write and vote on annotations (notes) about posts. The goal of this study is to better understand these Community Notes features on X.

Eligibility: You are eligible to participate in this study if you meet the following requirements.

  • You are at least 18 years old.
  • You are located in the United States.
  • You have an account on X.
  • You have signed up for the Community Notes program on X.
    Please note that this is an additional step. X accounts are not automatically signed up for Community Notes.
  • You have previously participated in the first part of this study.
  • You are able to download your account data on X. If you have not yet received a notification from X that your account data is available, please wait for that notification before beginning this part of the study.

Expected Duration: We anticipate that completing this phase of the study will take approximately 25 minutes.

Study Procedures: In this follow-up part of the study, we will ask you to complete a survey about yourself, including your experiences with Community Notes and perspectives on current events. We will also ask you to submit information derived from your X account data. Additional detail about the information that we will ask you to submit is available here [link], and you will have an opportunity to review this information before you submit. We will analyze your survey responses and X information to better understand Community Notes, including by matching your information to public de-identified data about your Community Notes activity.

Risks: We do not foresee any significant risks or discomforts from your participation in this study.

Benefits: By participating in this study, you may learn more about Community Notes on X. The study aims to contribute generalizable scientific knowledge.

Compensation: After completing this part of the study, we will compensate you $10 via an Amazon.com gift card code.

Privacy: The information that we collect in this study may enable us to identify or contact you. We will not make any effort to identify or contact you, except to answer any questions you have about the study, inform you of a follow-up phase of the study, or compensate you for participation. We will filter the X account information that you provide, before it is submitted to us, to minimize the information that we collect. You will have an opportunity to review this information before submission. The complete set of X account information that we will ask you to submit is available here [link]. We will safeguard identifiable or unprocessed study data with access controls and encryption both in transit and at rest. The research team is the only party that will have access to this study data. We will not include your name or any other information that could identify you in reports, presentations, or data sets based on this research. If you provide a text response in the study, we will not quote or paraphrase it without assessing whether it could identify you.

Your Rights as a Participant: Your participation is voluntary. You may stop participating at any time and for any reason. To end participation, close the browser window where the study is. You may also withdraw from the study after participating, if we still have a link between your email address and study data. To withdraw, you may contact the research team via the email address below.

Contact Information: If you have any questions or feedback about this study, you can contact the research team at communitynotes@lists.cs.princeton.edu.

If you have questions regarding your rights as a research subject, or if problems arise which you do not feel you can discuss with the Investigator, please contact the Institutional Review Board at:


Phone: (609) 258-8543
Email: irb@princeton.edu

Summary:

I understand the information that was presented and that:

  • I meet the eligibility requirements for this study.
  • My participation is voluntary.
  • Refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of benefits to which I am otherwise entitled. I may discontinue participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefits.
  • I do not waive any legal rights or release Princeton University or its agents from liability for negligence.

I hereby give my consent to be the subject of the research.