Community Notes, the crowdsourced fact-checking program launched a year ago to tackle disinformation on X (formerly Twitter), has flown under the radar for much of its existence. But in the past week it has been heralded by Elon Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino as a key tool in tackling the toxic deluge of disinformation that has flooded social media, and in particular X, during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
On Saturday, the company wrote on its own platform that “notes across the platform are now being seen tens of millions of times per day, generating north of 85 million impressions in the last week.” It added that thousands of new contributors had been enrolled in the system. However, a WIRED investigation found that Community Notes appears to be not functioning as designed, may be vulnerable to coordinated manipulation by outside groups, and lacks transparency about how notes are approved. Sources also claim that it is filled with in-fighting and disinformation, and there appears to be no real oversight from the company itself.
“I understand why they do it, but it doesn’t do anything like what they say it does,” one Community Notes contributor tells WIRED. “It is prone to manipulation, and it is far too slow and cumbersome. It serves no purpose as far as I can see. I think it’s probably making the disinformation worse, to be honest.”
This contributor, who was granted anonymity for this story because of concerns about retaliation from Musk or his supporters, should know about platform manipulation, because he is one of those engaging in it.
He is one member of a group of about 25 Community Notes contributors who actively coordinate on a daily basis in order to upvote or downvote particular notes. He is a member of the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO), a decentralized online volunteer movement that emerged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and uses humor to counter Russian disinformation and propaganda while raising funds in support of Ukraine.
“We have a group so we can coordinate who writes what Community Notes, and if you write one, you can coordinate so you get one voted as helpful, and there’s no validation on any of that,” the contributor says. The contributor claims that Russian embassies have engaged in similar tactics and alleges that they “will downvote anything that’s anti-Russian.” A WIRED review of unpublished notes accompanying contested Russian embassy posts written by NAFO members shows they have all been repeatedly downvoted.
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