# The Issues Surrounding X’s Community Notes: Bias, Misinformation, and the Need for Change
In recent times, social media outlets have come under greater scrutiny for their involvement in disseminating misinformation, especially concerning critical issues like elections. A prominent initiative aimed at tackling this problem on X (formerly known as Twitter) is the **Community Notes** feature, a crowdsourced fact-checking tool intended to add context to misleading posts. Nonetheless, a fresh report from the **Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)** has raised alarms regarding the efficacy of this system, indicating that biased users can easily suppress accurate notes, permitting misinformation to circulate unchecked.
## What Are Community Notes?
Community Notes, which was previously called Birdwatch, is an aspect of X that enables users to collectively fact-check posts. When a misleading post is flagged, users can submit notes that offer additional context or rectify false information. These notes are displayed only if a wide array of users from differing viewpoints concur that the note is “helpful.” In theory, this mechanism should guarantee that fact-checks are impartial and not swayed by any specific political or ideological bias.
However, the findings from the CCDH indicate that the system is significantly flawed.
## The Issue: Bias in Community Notes
The CCDH’s report, which examined over one million Community Notes, discovered that **74% of misleading posts concerning the US election had accurate notes proposed but were never displayed**. This is primarily due to the structure of the system. For a note to be visible, it requires agreement from a diverse group of users. However, on contentious subjects, such as elections, achieving that agreement is often challenging. Users with political leanings can easily opt to not rate a note or downvote it, effectively obscuring accurate details.
This poses a considerable problem: **Community Notes fall short precisely in areas where they are most essential**—on divisive and controversial topics. For instance, the report pointed out several misleading assertions about the US election that were viewed by millions without any accompanying fact-checking notes. These claims included erroneous narratives regarding voter registration for undocumented immigrants, the dangers of mail-in voting, and the notion that the Democratic Party is “importing voters.”
One especially concerning illustration involved a post from **Elon Musk**, the owner of X, which propagated the unfounded claim that Democrats were importing voters. Even though precise notes were proposed to counter this misinformation, they were never showcased, and the post amassed over **51 million views**.
## The Effects of Misinformation
The CCDH’s report highlights the tangible repercussions of unregulated misinformation. In the context of the US election, false assertions about voting methods and eligibility can erode public confidence in the electoral system and potentially sway voter actions. The report further noted that **misleading posts receive 13 times more visibility than the fact-checking notes**, implying that even if a note is eventually shown, the harm has likely been done already.
This dilemma is not confined to a single political viewpoint. Although the bulk of misleading posts identified in the report originated from conservative users, X also neglected to counter a false assertion that Donald Trump was no longer qualified to run for president. This post garnered **1.4 million views**, and the absence of a correction could have adversely affected Trump’s voter turnout.
## X’s Move: Lightning Notes
In reaction to criticisms regarding the pace of fact-checking, X recently unveiled **”lightning notes,”** which aim to deliver fact-checks within **15 minutes** of a misleading post being published. X has promoted this as a significant enhancement, asserting that quicker notes will curtail the spread of harmful information. Nevertheless, the CCDH remains doubtful, contending that the quantity of notes displayed within an hour of a post’s release is still relatively low. On a platform boasting an estimated **429 million daily active users**, only approximately **400 notes** were shown within an hour over a two-week span.
While X maintains that Community Notes are operating more swiftly than ever, the CCDH’s report implies that the system still requires considerable improvement, particularly regarding contentious subjects.
## The Threat of an Echo Chamber
Another concern highlighted by the CCDH is that X risks evolving into an **echo chamber**. According to data from **Sensor Tower**, global daily active users on X have diminished by **28%** since Elon Musk took over the platform in October 2022. However, engagement among the active users has risen by **8%**, indicating that those who remain are more engaged than ever. This leads to a scenario where a smaller, more ideologically uniform group of users dominates the discussion, enabling misinformation to proliferate unchecked.
Upon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, one of his initial steps was to significantly reduce the platform’s **trust and safety teams**, which were tasked with content moderation. He expanded the role of Community Notes to address this gap, but the CCDH contends that this was a misstep. Without adequately supported trust and safety teams, the platform
