With the November 3 midterm elections approaching, a new study says the safety net X points to most often is mostly missing in action. NewsGuard, a United States watchdog that rates the credibility of news and information sites, found that Community Notes failed to flag 93.1 percent of false claims about the midterms spreading on the platform, according to reporting by AFP.
Community Notes lets users contribute notes that add context or corrections to posts. X introduced the system in late 2022, and Elon Musk has promoted it often, calling it "awesome" and saying that all users, including himself, are subject to correction by the crowd. NewsGuard identified dozens of posts advancing false election claims, including bogus allegations of election fraud. Only 13 of those posts were tagged with a Community Note, and the uncorrected posts drew millions of interactions ahead of the vote.
One example NewsGuard cited was a post by a conservative commentator claiming that New York and California had made it illegal for voters to show their voter ID, and for officials to ask for it. No such rule exists in either state. NewsGuard also said Musk himself, who has 241.5 million followers on X, advanced at least four false claims related to the midterms, and none of them carried a Community Note.
None of this means Community Notes never work. Studies have shown the system can help dispel some falsehoods, such as vaccine misinformation. Researchers caution, however, that it works best on topics where there is broad consensus, because a note generally needs agreement from readers who do not usually agree with each other before it becomes visible. On contested political claims, that agreement can be slow to arrive, or never arrive at all. Some researchers also warn that contributors can be motivated by partisan beliefs when they propose or rate notes.
The stakes go beyond X. Tech platforms increasingly treat the community-driven model as an alternative to professional fact-checking. Last year Meta ended its third-party fact-checking program in the United States, with chief executive Mark Zuckerberg saying it had led to "too much censorship," a claim professional fact-checkers reject. Last month Meta said it had begun testing its own version of Community Notes in 16 Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. Meta's Oversight Board has said Community Notes is not an adequate replacement for fact-checking.
X did not respond to AFP's request for comment on the study. For everyday users, the practical lesson is simple, especially in the final days before November 3: the absence of a Community Note is not evidence that a post is true. Election claims are worth checking against official election authorities and more than one credible news source before sharing, no matter how many times a post has been liked or reposted.