The crowd-sourced fact-checking initiative on X, known as Community Notes, is reportedly failing to address the influx of misinformation related to U.S. elections on Elon Musk’s social media platform. This observation comes from a report released on Wednesday by an organization monitoring online speech.
The nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) conducted an analysis of the Community Notes feature, revealing that accurate notes meant to correct false and misleading claims concerning U.S. elections were absent in 209 out of a sample of 283 posts identified as misleading, accounting for 74%. These misleading posts included inaccurate assertions about the 2020 presidential election being fraudulent and the unreliability of voting systems, according to CCDH.
Further analysis indicated that when Community Notes were present, the original misleading content received 13 times more views than the corrective notes. Community Notes enables X users to compose fact checks for posts after being accepted as contributors. The accuracy, sourcing, clarity, and neutrality of these notes are then evaluated by other users. Initially launched in 2021 by the previous management of the platform, which was then called Twitter, the feature was named Birdwatch. Following Elon Musk’s takeover in 2022, it was renamed Community Notes.
Last year, X sued CCDH, holding the group accountable for a loss of “tens of millions of dollars” in advertising revenue following its documentation of rising hate speech on the platform. This lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge in March.
Keith Coleman, Vice President of Product at X, who oversees Community Notes, stated that the program “maintains a high bar to make notes effective and sustain trust across perspectives.” Coleman added that in 2024, thousands of election and politics-related notes met these standards. In the past month alone, hundreds of such notes appeared on thousands of posts and garnered tens of millions of views, attesting to their effectiveness due to their quality.
X, based in San Francisco, also cited external academic research supporting the trustworthiness and effectiveness of Community Notes. However, Imran Ahmed, CEO of CCDH, argued that their research indicates that X’s Community Notes are insufficient against the widespread disinformation and hate that jeopardize democracy and deepen community divisions.
