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X, formerly Twitter, could be bringing back a downvote feature for posts \u2014 something it had previously tested back in 2021<\/a>, ahead of Elon Musk\u2019s acquisition of the social network<\/a>. At the time of the original experiment, Twitter had tested both upvoting and downvoting buttons, similar to how users can vote on the social forums site Reddit. But now, code references found<\/a> in the X iOS app indicate that the company could be considering adding downvotes for replies only to improve how they\u2019re ranked.<\/p>\n The code was first spotted by reverse engineer Aaron Perris, @aaronp613 on X,<\/a> who regularly uncovers new app features ahead of launch; the code references were discovered in Tuesday\u2019s iOS app update, Perris told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n Finding a reference in an app\u2019s code about a new feature or functionality doesn\u2019t necessarily mean the company is planning to bring the feature to the public. Companies, and particularly social media apps, internally test new features all the time before deciding whether to expand a project or scrap it.<\/p>\n However, in this case, at least one X engineer as well as X owner Elon Musk have now commented on the possible addition. <\/p>\n According to Jay Baxter,<\/a> senior staff machine learning engineer at X who works on Community Notes, the idea to leverage a negative signal could be useful, as it\u2019s something that works for X\u2019s crowdsourced fact-checking feature, too.<\/p>\n He explains that if you simply added up all the negative signals, you could get a \u201chivemind like Reddit.\u201d But one way to improve this system would be to only downrank those posts that had negative ratings from people who typically disagree, he said on X.<\/a><\/p>\n This is similar to the system X uses with Community Notes, a feature that requires consensus among people who don\u2019t typically agree before its fact-checks go live.<\/p>\n