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X’s crowdsourced fact-checking system, Community Notes, struggles to combat the spread of misinformation on the platform. Despite Elon Musk’s vision for the tool as a transparent, community-driven solution, recent researchers reveal that most fact-checks on political posts fail to reach the public view, with fewer than nine per cent of proposed corrections ever displayed.
This revelation comes just days before the United States Presidential elections. As X emerges as a prominent platform for political discourse, these findings raise questions about whether Community Notes can meet the challenges of moderating high-stakes content in a polarised digital landscape.
A study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and data analysis by The Washington Post reveals that although X users submit many proposed fact-checks, only a limited number are shown to the public questioning the tool’s worth.
Community Notes relies on contributions from X users, who volunteer to submit and vote on factual annotations for posts they believe lack context or contain inaccuracies. Theoretically, the system leverages a unique voting algorithm to prioritise notes that achieve a balanced consensus across diverse perspectives.
Yet, as the study points out, most proposed notes fail to make it to the public view. The CCDH analysed 283 posts with political misinformation identified by external fact-checkers. Of these, 229 posts received proposed notes from contributors to clarify misleading claims.
However, only 20 of these posts — less than 9 percent — had Community Notes approved for public display. According to The Washington Post, this low visibility highlights a substantial limitation of the program: even when users flag and correct misinformation, the system’s consensus-driven process often prevents these notes from reaching X’s broader audience.
Community Notes contributors like Marco Piani liken the experience to “tears in the rain” voicing frustration that misinformation travels faster before any clarifying notes can be attached. Even with a dedicated user base of over 800,000+ contributors, the platform’s model appears insufficient to counteract the viral spread of misleading information.
For politically charged content, time is of the essence. The Post’s analysis found that even when notes are approved, they take more than 11 hours on average to go live. In that window, misinformation can reach millions, embedding itself into public discourse before any clarifying context is applied.
Also, Community Notes are not neutral. Fact-checks on Republican politicians’ posts were approved four times more often than those for Democrats despite a higher volume of proposed notes on Democratic posts.
To rectify the situation, X has introduced “Lightning Notes,” an update promising to accelerate the fact-checking process by reducing the time it takes for a note to appear publicly to under 15 minutes. While it is a step in the right direction, experts are sceptical about its potential success.
Community Notes also say a thing or two about deep biases in society. Critics argue that a public-driven system is bound to struggle when faced with deeply entrenched biases on both sides of the political spectrum, undermining any system reliant on collective agreement.
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