Elon Musk says he will “fix” Community Notes as they are “increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media”, after disagreeing with notes about Ukraine
which often gets the facts wrong. Worthy mission. But X is dominated by more lies & often deranged bigotry. It's disappointing. Senator Stan Kutcher / @stankutcher : Trying to have a rational and constructive conversation with the TrumpMusks is like trying to collect water in a sieve. Gummi / @gummibear737 : Elon: One rule for thee, and another rule for me! Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @KenKirtland17 You are the liar. And the people you cite were not party to the discussions. Liar. Philip Bunn / @philipdbunn : If Elon changes community notes because he's getting noted too much, he will be nuking the most interesting and useful part of this website for the sake of his own ego. It's honestly quite pitiful and sad to see him behave this way. Weak man. Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @KonstantinKisin You're losing credibility with this. Either Zelensky holds an election to prove that he represents the will of the people or he is a dictator. @christogrozev : Ha. Just two weeks ago I predicted in a speech that this megalomaniac will try to neuter the only thing that makes X/Twitter palatable. And promptly, he says he will. Shayan Sardarizadeh / @shayan86 : Elon Musk says he's going to “fix” community notes because he disagrees with a note on President Trump's claim that Zelensky has a 4% approval rating. Musk also claims community notes are “being gamed by governments & legacy media”, but provides no evidence for that claim. The Rory Stewart / @rorystewartuk : Seriously? I thought @elonmusk you were running 3 businesses and improving efficiency in the US govt. Instead you are trolling politicians abroad. When you say “I challenge you to hold an election?” it's as though you are challenging an equal. Are you going to run for office now? Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @Acyn 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. Charlie Pickering / @charliepick : Dude. Listen to yourself. CommunityNotes needs to be fixed because it doesn't agree with you? So lame. @matthewberman : See...this is scary to me. When Elon doesn't agree with community notes, it's “gamed.” But before, it was the best feature of X according to him. Now, he's putting his thumb on the scale and “fixing it.” Seems very fishy. Joe Walsh / @walshfreedom : Hahaha. @elonmusk is such a dishonest broker. @eyeslasho : Musk now wants to “fix” Community Notes because he didn't like it correcting Trump's absurd claim that only 4% of Ukrainians support Zelenskyy. Well, Maybe Musk should “fix” Grok, too, because Grok also regularly debunks Trump's (and Musk's) claims. Even better, Musk should Lionel Page / @page_eco : Community notes have been a great system. They use sound statistical algorithms to extract collective wisdom even from a polarised population. These algorithms are impartial. Musk went from supporting this crowdsourced fact-checking to finding it inconvenient. Alan Levinovitz / @alanlevinovitz : On Feb 6, I made a prediction that within two months, Musk would turn on Community Notes, accuse it of being ideologically compromised, and render it useless. Happening more quickly than I expected: [image] @tekbog : elon needs to surround himself with less yes men, come on man, breaking community notes because it doesn't support his pov? we are never getting to mars dawg Piers Morgan / @piersmorgan : Elon, how can there be a free, fair election that represents the will of the people if 6m Ukrainians are out of the country as refugees, 3.5m more are under illegal Russian occupation, martial law is in operation (prohibiting elections) and Putin's bombing the crap out of them? Billy Binion / @billybinion : For the record, in 2022 I thought the panic over Musk taking over this platform bordered on hysteria & was out of touch w reality. And yet he has worked hard to validate most all of the left's concerns as he exchanges the truth for right-wing trolling. Again, it's disappointing. Shayan Sardarizadeh / @shayan86 : @elonmusk @CommunityNotes The entire point of the community notes system is that it's independent of the personal views of the people running this platform. If you start tampering with the system because you personally dislike some notes, then how could users continue to trust it? Zach Weissmueller / @theabridgedzach : Community notes is the only thing keeping this platform from spinning off into completely unhinged insanity imo. I sincerely hope any “fix” remains open-source and doesn't do anything to undermine the rivalrous aspect of truth-seeking. Isaac Saul / @ike_saul : I asked @grok to analyze the last 1,000 posts from Elon Musk for truth and veracity. More than half of what Elon posts on X is false or misleading, while most of the “true” posts are simply updates about his companies. [image] @byzgeneral : @elonmusk @CommunityNotes Your own AI says you're lying Elon. [image] @angry_staffer : I wonder what happened? [image] Lefteris Karapetsas / @lefterisjp : This platform is dying a lot faster than I would have expected. “Fixing” community notes because you don't like its results and spew conspiracy theories about “legacy media”, and “governments” manipulating results. My brother in Christ. You are in the government. And by now Kareem Rifai / @kareemrifai : Dismantling Twitter's best feature, Community Notes, because the truth and correcting Russian propaganda is inconvenient. This is after he spent years proudly taking ownership of the program despite it being invented before he purchased the platform. [image] @amuse : UKRAINE: Claims that Zelensky has an approval rate of 57% are from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology which received USAID funding for its polling. It is run by a VERY patriotic Ukrainian named Anton Hrushetskyi. It is unlikely the polling is credible. The US intel [image] Isaac Saul / @ike_saul : Man. Musk is now openly planning to change community notes *because it is producing answers he doesn't like.* How the hell does anyone defend this? Or pretend he is a free speech champion? He censors. He nukes accounts. And now he is thumbing the scale on community notes. Forums: r/BlockedAndReported : Elon Musk Says He'll ‘Fix’ Community Notes on X After It Disagreed With Him See also Mediagazer
GizmodoMatt Novak
Context & Ripple Effects
Community Notes already faced an effectiveness gap: a review of false election-claim posts found that only a small share of member-authored notes became publicly visible, as described in earlier reporting on notes that failed to reach public display. The proposed intervention therefore lands on a system whose legitimacy depends on transparent, broad-based contributor judgment.
The dispute also fits X's longer shift away from conventional content-policing approaches; [[a:843522|other major platforms were already following X's retreat from political-misinformation enforcement]]. What matters here is whether a crowdsourced corrective remains insulated from the platform owner's views.
First-order effects
Community Notes contributors and X users face immediate uncertainty over how notes about contested political claims will be evaluated or displayed, because Musk has said he intends to change the system without specifying the mechanism.
X's trust proposition for Community Notes is directly tested: critics can point to the Ukraine disagreement as evidence that unfavorable notes may invite owner-led intervention.
Second-order effects
Researchers, journalists, and public figures deciding whether to rely on Notes may treat its corrections more cautiously if policy changes appear tied to the subjects of individual notes.
Rival platforms can contrast their own fact-checking or labeling systems with X's governance model, while X must balance complaints about coordinated manipulation against preserving contributor confidence.
Third-order effects
If platform owners can readily revise crowdsourced moderation tools after personally salient disputes, nominally distributed fact-checking may become another form of owner-directed speech policy rather than an independent credibility layer.
The broader governance question is whether provenance, voting rules, and appeals processes—not merely the existence of a crowdsourced feature—determine whether users accept platform corrections as legitimate.
The trend: This is one data point in the shift from centralized moderation toward owner-governed and community-mediated systems whose independence is increasingly under scrutiny.
This is a perfect encapsulation of something I keep saying: adapting content moderation interventions based on what is politically expedient is naive and reckless. As soon as an intervention is powerful enough to upset a political actor, that actor will attack it as biased. [em…
Unfortunately, @CommunityNotes is increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media. Working to fix this ... It should be utterly obvious that a Zelensky-controlled poll about his OWN approval is not credible!! If Zelensky was actually loved by the people of Ukraine, he
Musk has built two platforms (Grok and Community Notes) specifically designed to separate fact from fiction in an unbiased, algorithmic fashion. One uses humans (community notes) the other AI (Grok). In the last few months, both have been consistently and repeatedly calling
Community Notes are great. Removing anti-right censorship bias was welcome. But Elon Musk's own tweets/replies/RTs, etc. have greatly amplified falsehoods and ugly conspiracy theories. That in turn, has driven away many liberal/left posters.
Elon Musk is going to end up removing Community Notes now that he has effectively declared war on any semblance of honesty, truth or common sense. [image]
You gotta give me some points for noting a while ago that community notes would be gamed. Anything that doesn't have skin in the game for the people voting suffers from similar concerns. Community notes is brilliant, just like Wikipedia was brilliant. Both ultimately flawed.
2024 Musk: community notes is so great, it's a crowdsourced tool to independently fact check the powerful elite 2025 Musk: I never thought the powerful elite factchecking tool would factcheck MY powerful elite
Community notes was the only even remotely positive change ushered in by the new ownership. Naturally, the owner of this website wants to gut it because it allowed people to disagree with him.
Musk and Trump's despicable lies about Ukraine are being called out by good people around the world, so Musk is now claiming community notes are being ‘gamed.’
As much as a lot of people on the right hate this, it's true. Elon Musk said he bought this app so it could be an alternative to the mainstream media—which often gets the facts wrong. Worthy mission. But X is dominated by more lies & often deranged bigotry. It's disappointing.
If Elon changes community notes because he's getting noted too much, he will be nuking the most interesting and useful part of this website for the sake of his own ego. It's honestly quite pitiful and sad to see him behave this way. Weak man.
@KonstantinKisin You're losing credibility with this. Either Zelensky holds an election to prove that he represents the will of the people or he is a dictator.
Ha. Just two weeks ago I predicted in a speech that this megalomaniac will try to neuter the only thing that makes X/Twitter palatable. And promptly, he says he will.
Elon Musk says he's going to “fix” community notes because he disagrees with a note on President Trump's claim that Zelensky has a 4% approval rating. Musk also claims community notes are “being gamed by governments & legacy media”, but provides no evidence for that claim. The
Seriously? I thought @elonmusk you were running 3 businesses and improving efficiency in the US govt. Instead you are trolling politicians abroad. When you say “I challenge you to hold an election?” it's as though you are challenging an equal. Are you going to run for office now?
@Acyn 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.
See...this is scary to me. When Elon doesn't agree with community notes, it's “gamed.” But before, it was the best feature of X according to him. Now, he's putting his thumb on the scale and “fixing it.” Seems very fishy.
Musk now wants to “fix” Community Notes because he didn't like it correcting Trump's absurd claim that only 4% of Ukrainians support Zelenskyy. Well, Maybe Musk should “fix” Grok, too, because Grok also regularly debunks Trump's (and Musk's) claims. Even better, Musk should
Community notes have been a great system. They use sound statistical algorithms to extract collective wisdom even from a polarised population. These algorithms are impartial. Musk went from supporting this crowdsourced fact-checking to finding it inconvenient.
On Feb 6, I made a prediction that within two months, Musk would turn on Community Notes, accuse it of being ideologically compromised, and render it useless. Happening more quickly than I expected: [image]
elon needs to surround himself with less yes men, come on man, breaking community notes because it doesn't support his pov? we are never getting to mars dawg
Elon, how can there be a free, fair election that represents the will of the people if 6m Ukrainians are out of the country as refugees, 3.5m more are under illegal Russian occupation, martial law is in operation (prohibiting elections) and Putin's bombing the crap out of them?
For the record, in 2022 I thought the panic over Musk taking over this platform bordered on hysteria & was out of touch w reality. And yet he has worked hard to validate most all of the left's concerns as he exchanges the truth for right-wing trolling. Again, it's disappointing.
@elonmusk @CommunityNotes The entire point of the community notes system is that it's independent of the personal views of the people running this platform. If you start tampering with the system because you personally dislike some notes, then how could users continue to trust it…
Community notes is the only thing keeping this platform from spinning off into completely unhinged insanity imo. I sincerely hope any “fix” remains open-source and doesn't do anything to undermine the rivalrous aspect of truth-seeking.
I asked @grok to analyze the last 1,000 posts from Elon Musk for truth and veracity. More than half of what Elon posts on X is false or misleading, while most of the “true” posts are simply updates about his companies. [image]
This platform is dying a lot faster than I would have expected. “Fixing” community notes because you don't like its results and spew conspiracy theories about “legacy media”, and “governments” manipulating results. My brother in Christ. You are in the government. And by now
Dismantling Twitter's best feature, Community Notes, because the truth and correcting Russian propaganda is inconvenient. This is after he spent years proudly taking ownership of the program despite it being invented before he purchased the platform. [image]
UKRAINE: Claims that Zelensky has an approval rate of 57% are from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology which received USAID funding for its polling. It is run by a VERY patriotic Ukrainian named Anton Hrushetskyi. It is unlikely the polling is credible. The US intel [im…
Man. Musk is now openly planning to change community notes *because it is producing answers he doesn't like.* How the hell does anyone defend this? Or pretend he is a free speech champion? He censors. He nukes accounts. And now he is thumbing the scale on community notes.