X owner Elon Musk is looking to overhaul the platform’s Community Notes fact-checking, which is good news for free speech advocates.
X’s Community Notes function as a form of ubiquitous censorship on the platform, as the crowdsourced fact-checking feature not only slaps a label on posts claiming they’re false, but also demonetizes and suppresses the targeted post. MRC’s unique CensorTrack database has over 770 Community Notes cases logged. Even Musk, who previously touted and praised the system, is now acknowledging it is problematic after he became a target.
On Thursday, Musk posted, “Unfortunately, @CommunityNotes is increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media. Working to fix this.” Since the original tweet has been deleted, it is unclear exactly which Community Note Musk was referring to. But Gizmodo claimed that Musk was frustrated by Community Notes using leftist sources to defend Ukrainian leader Volodomyr Zelensky, who has postponed elections in his country and refused to agree to the peace terms with Russia proposed by the Trump administration.
Also on Thursday, Musk critiqued a since-removed Community Note on a video clip shared by the account Acyn. The now removed Note apparently utilized leftist legacy media to assert that Musk dishonestly stated that his SpaceX intends to rescue astronauts who will have been stranded for nearly 300 days on the space station. “They were left up there for political reasons,” Musk told Fox News host Sean Hannity. Musk subsequently replied to the Note saying, “This Community Note is false. SpaceX could have brought the astronauts back last year, but Biden pushed the return past the inauguration date. Legacy media is NOT a reliable source.”
Community Notes fact checkers proceeded to retaliate by imposing a second Note, this time on Musk’s criticism of the previous censorship. “X is not supposed to be choosing what community notes show up, it is the community that decides what sources are reliable,” the note pontificated. “Additionally, ‘legacy media’ is included in good examples of community notes on the community notes guide.” The post included a link to the Community Notes Guide.
What that Note really illustrates, however, is that Community Notes is inherently anti-free speech and easily weaponized for biased reasons. As noted above, MRC tracks X Community Notes censorship. In July 2024, for instance, Community Notes targeted then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s account Trump War Room for posting about VP Kamala Harris fundraising for rioters. In December, LifeNews.com was hit with a Note for celebrating 14 states banning abortion.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact X: (415) 222-9670 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
