X’s Community Notes Fail to Stem Tide of Election Misinformation, Study Finds
SAN FRANCISCO – A new report has cast doubt on the effectiveness of X’s Community Notes, a crowdsourced fact-checking program, in combating the proliferation of election misinformation on the platform. The study, conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), reveals that a significant portion of misleading posts about the U.S. elections are not being flagged by Community Notes, allowing false narratives to spread unchecked.
The CCDH’s analysis focused on a sample of 283 posts containing misleading information about U.S. elections. A staggering 74% of these posts – 209 in total – lacked any visible Community Notes to correct or contextualize the false claims. This included pervasive narratives such as the debunked assertion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and unfounded allegations about the unreliability of voting systems. The study’s findings raise concerns about the program’s ability to effectively address the scale of misinformation, particularly given the heightened sensitivity surrounding elections and the potential for such falsehoods to undermine democratic processes.
Even when Community Notes were present, the study found a significant disparity in visibility. Misleading posts received 13 times more views than the accompanying fact-check notes, suggesting that the corrections are failing to reach a substantial portion of the audience exposed to the original misinformation. This imbalance raises questions about the program’s design and whether it adequately promotes the visibility of corrective information.
Community Notes, originally launched in 2021 as Birdwatch under Twitter’s previous management, relies on user contributions to identify and fact-check misleading posts. Contributors write notes that are then reviewed by other users based on criteria such as accuracy, sourcing, clarity, and neutrality. The program underwent a name change to Community Notes following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform in 2022. However, the CCDH report suggests that despite these efforts, the program is struggling to keep pace with the volume and reach of election-related misinformation.
X, however, contests the CCDH’s findings. Keith Coleman, a vice president of product at X who oversees Community Notes, defended the program’s effectiveness, highlighting its stringent quality control measures. He emphasized that "thousands of election and politics related notes have cleared that bar in 2024" and asserted that "in the last month alone, hundreds of such notes have been shown on thousands of posts and have been seen tens of millions of times." Coleman attributed the program’s purported effectiveness to the high quality of the notes generated. X also pointed to external academic research supporting the trustworthiness and effectiveness of Community Notes.
The conflicting perspectives of the CCDH and X underscore the ongoing debate surrounding the platform’s handling of misinformation. The CCDH’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, criticized Community Notes as a mere "Band-Aid" on a larger problem, arguing that the program fails to address the underlying issues of hate speech and disinformation that plague the platform. This latest report comes amidst a history of contentiousness between X and the CCDH. In 2023, X sued the organization, alleging it was responsible for significant advertising revenue losses following a CCDH report documenting a rise in hate speech on the platform. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed by a federal judge. The ongoing dispute highlights the tension between platform accountability and the challenges of content moderation in the digital age. The effectiveness of crowdsourced fact-checking initiatives like Community Notes remains a subject of scrutiny, with questions persisting about their ability to adequately address the spread of misinformation, particularly in the context of high-stakes events like elections.