Community Notes was launched by Twitter’s previous management under the name Birdwatch and was rebranded by Musk after his acquisition of the platform in 2022. Designed to empower users to fact-check content, the program enables contributors to add notes to posts they believe contain false information. These contributions are then reviewed for accuracy, neutrality, and clarity before becoming visible to other users. However, CCDH’s analysis found that while the feature was present on some posts, the misleading claims typically reached far larger audiences than the fact-checks. On average, misinformation posts attracted 13 times more views than the accompanying corrective notes.
Among the unchecked claims were recurrent falsehoods about the 2020 U.S. presidential election, alleging it was stolen and that voting systems are unreliable. This reveals a critical gap, especially as political misinformation continues to circulate in the lead-up to the 2024 election season. Keith Coleman, X’s vice president of product who oversees Community Notes, stated that the program holds a “high bar” to maintain trust and neutrality, highlighting that thousands of notes on election-related content have been published this year, with many gaining significant traction. According to Coleman, hundreds of these notes reached “millions of views” in recent weeks.
X has defended Community Notes by referencing third-party research demonstrating its reliability. However, CCDH’s CEO Imran Ahmed expressed concerns, stating that Community Notes falls short of stemming the misinformation flow on X, which, according to CCDH, poses threats to democratic values and contributes to increased polarization.
The findings come after X’s strained relationship with CCDH, which the platform sued last year, attributing millions in ad revenue losses to CCDH’s previous reports linking X to a rise in hate speech. Although the lawsuit was dismissed in March, the study indicates that X’s battle against misinformation is far from over, sparking further questions about the platform’s role in information dissemination ahead of the 2024 elections.
