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In a strategic move weeks before India’s national elections, X, a social media platform owned by Elon Musk, has launched Community Notes in the country.
The Indian national elections will take place from April 19 to June 1, and the final results will be announced on June 4.
The Community Notes feature allows users to contribute crowd-sourced fact-checked notes to posts, offering additional context, debunking myths, and providing broader insights.
Users then rate these contributions based on their helpfulness and accuracy, creating a collaborative approach to maintaining content credibility.
This expansion in India follows X’s global rollout of Community Notes in December 2022. Initially, posting rights were restricted to specific countries, but they have since expanded to include contributors from 69 countries.
Adding Indian contributors is a significant step towards providing a localised context and combatting misinformation in a region known for its diverse linguistic and political landscape.
Despite the efforts, challenges remain in controlling the spread of misinformation entirely, especially during sensitive periods such as national elections. While X has not made specific announcements regarding its strategies for the Indian elections, the company’s focus on enhancing fact-checking capabilities is the first step in the right direction.
Many countries will hold national elections this year, and social media platforms like X have taken steps to curb the spread of false news. For example, during the 2019 Indian national elections, Twitter added an option to report misleading content on the platform. Similarly, Facebook, another widely used social networking site, prepared a task force to combat misinformation.
In 2024, Google also suspended Gemini’s ability to answer election-related queries. This was done to mitigate any potentially harmful answer by the AI tool, which is still nascent and might create controversy.
In February, the Indian government ordered X to block accounts in India. Although X disagreed with the directive, it ultimately chose to comply.
As the world’s biggest democracy gears up for election, X’s expansion of the Community Notes can be considered a proactive step to combat misinformation and contribute to a more reliable source of facts for people.
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