Community Notes Replaces Fact-Checkers Under Musk

Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter), has relied on the community rather than fact-checkers to monitor misinformation online since acquiring the social media company in 2022. He has championed the Community Notes feature as the best way to correct false posts.

However, Musk expressed dissatisfaction with the results on Thursday, stating that he intends to “fix” Community Notes because it is “increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media,” without providing evidence to support his claim.

Musk’s frustration was triggered by Community Notes members correcting posts on X that inaccurately claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had low approval ratings.

Read Also: Meta Launches Community Notes to Social Platforms

A survey from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 57% of Ukrainians trusted Zelenskyy, contradicting claims made by former President Donald Trump.

Tensions between Trump’s administration, which includes Musk, and the Ukrainian government have escalated, with Trump accusing Ukraine of starting a war with Russia.

Amid these developments, Musk criticised a Zelensky-controlled poll on his approval rating as not credible, despite other sources showing high favorability for Zelenskyy.

The Community Notes feature, originally introduced as Birdwatch in 2021, is intended to combat misinformation by enlisting users to flag and correct misleading posts, similar to Wikipedia.

However, experts like Neil Johnson of George Washington University argue that crowdsourcing is an imperfect substitute for formal fact-checking.

CNBC