X Community Notes ‘failed’ to flag US election falsehoods, study says
The crowdsourced fact-checking programme failed to flag 93.1% of false claims, with uncorrected posts drawing millions of interactions.
A new study reveals that Elon Musk's X failed to flag the majority of false claims related to the US midterm elections, with only 13 out of dozens of posts tagged with Community Notes, X's community-driven verification system. Community Notes, introduced by X in late 2022, allows users to add context or corrections to posts. However, researchers have questioned its effectiveness in combating misinformation.
The uncorrected posts have drawn millions of interactions leading up to the Nov 3 midterm elections. One post by a conservative commentator claimed that New York and California had made it illegal for voters to show and officials to ask for their voter ID, a claim that has no basis in reality. X's CEO Musk often promotes Community Notes, calling it "awesome" and asserting that all users, including himself, are subject to correction by the crowd-sourced model.
Despite this, NewsGuard found that Musk himself advanced at least four false claims related to the midterm elections, none of which received a Community Note. X did not comment on the study. Research shows that Community Notes can be effective in dispelling some falsehoods, like vaccine misinformation, but it works best for topics with broad consensus.
Some researchers also warn that Community Notes users may be motivated to target political opponents due to partisan beliefs. Other tech platforms have increasingly viewed the community-driven model as an alternative to professional fact-checking. In response to criticism of its third-party fact-checking program, Meta ended it in the United States last year, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg stating that it led to "too much censorship."
Meta recently began testing its own version of Community Notes in 16 Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America as part of a potential replacement for its fact-checking program, though there is no timeline for when this change will become official. Meta's Oversight Board, a quasi-independent body funded by the company to review its moderation decisions, has stated that Community Notes is not an adequate replacement for fact-checking.
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