Elon Musk says governments are “gaming” X’s fact-checking system, vows to fix it

Elon Musk

Elon Musk has claimed that one of X’s popular features called Community Notes is being misused by the governments.He claims that governments and traditional media organizations are influencing Community Notes to push their own narratives. However, he has not shown any proof to substantiate his claims.

Notably, Community Notes is a feature on X (formerly Twitter) that lets users add context or fact-check posts that might be misleading. If enough people from different viewpoints agree, a note appears under the post, helping others understand the full picture.

His comments came after a debate over a poll about Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Former U.S. President Donald Trump recently claimed that Zelensky’s approval rating is only 4%. CNN fact-checked this claim, pointing to a survey that found 57% of Ukrainians trust Zelensky.

Musk questioned the reliability of this poll, suggesting it was biased because of its funding and the people running it. He also criticized Zelensky for not holding elections, implying that the Ukrainian leader is avoiding them because he fears losing.

Trump has been increasingly critical of Zelensky, accusing him of mishandling Ukraine and taking too much support from the U.S. However, Ukraine’s elections were postponed because of the ongoing war with Russia.

Musk introduced Community Notes as part of his push for “free speech” after buying Twitter in 2021. He wanted users to help fact-check content instead of relying on centralized moderators. Now, he says the system isn’t working as intended and promises to fix it.

Meanwhile, Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, is also working on a similar system to replace its old fact-checking methods, which some users felt were biased.