How Emoji Credibility Indicators Add Context to HackerNoon Stories

As a technology publishing platform, we work to facilitate value between reader and writer. Our new release of Emoji Credibility Indicators surfaces essential context to the content within every HackerNoon story.

Emoji credibility indicators will provide transparency on HackerNoon for writers and readers. This blog post goes over how and why this works, but you can also learn more about emoji credibility indicators in the HackerNoon help section.

Context Surrounds Content

Emoji Credibility Indicators on the HackerNoon Story Page

On the story page below the contributor bio, the “Credibility” heading will appear with a corresponding custom emoji and tooltip to indicate relevant information about the story to the reader.

If the reader hovers over the emoji + indicator descriptor (i.e. “👁️ Original Reporting”), the reader will see a sentence displaying what this indicator means about the story (i.e. “This story contains new, firsthand information uncovered by the writer.”). A story can have multiple emoji credibility indicators.

How to Set Your Story’s Emoji Credibility Indicators

On any story draft, visit the “Story Settings” flyout menu, and scroll down to “Emoji Credibility Indicators.”

The “?” tool tip will also give a brief explanation of what each credibility indicator means in order to help writers choose the appropriate context. This builds on the contributing writers ability to disclose what cryptocurrencies they hodl and what stocks they own.

HackerNoon Human Editors will review each story’s emoji credibility indicators, and will use editorial notes to clarify anything with the contributing writers.

Additionally (here’s the help section article), if you have any ideas for any new types of emoji credibility indicators, requests to change how this feature functions, or any other product inputs, feel free to comment below :-)

Why Adding Context to Content Matters to the Future of Digital Text

When lost in a good read, it may feel like there are only words, but the reality is, no text exists in a vacuum. All text has a setting. Too often on social media and the current internet, what surrounds the text is vanity metrics designed to keep you in the newsfeed, designed to re-affirm that what you’re doing is liked/upvoted/not-a-waste-of-time, instead of being designed to provide you with structured indications that define the context of the story.