Elon Musk, in his usual fashion, has expressed his outrage over Community Notes, a crowdsourced fact-checking program on his social network X (formerly Twitter), after it corrected misinformation he disagreed with. The billionaire said he intends to "fix" Community Notes, accusing governments and traditional media outlets of manipulating the program without evidence, Gizmodo reports.
"Unfortunately, is increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media. Working to fix this," Musk wrote on Thursday.
The controversy was sparked by fact-checked posts about the war in Ukraine. Community Notes noted false claims about President Volodymyr Zelensky, which angered Musk.
US President Donald Trump has recently spread claims that Zelensky is a "dictator" and accused Ukraine of allegedly starting the war. He has also claimed that Zelensky’s approval rating in Ukraine is just 4%, a claim that has been repeatedly denied. Although the Ukrainian president’s approval rating has fallen significantly from its peak immediately after the start of the full-scale war, according to a recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), he is trusted by 57% of Ukrainians.
Musk's displeasure with Community Notes is another example of his interference with X's moderation system. Although some users credit Musk with creating Community Notes, the feature existed before Twitter's acquisition in 2022 under the name Birdwatch, and Musk merely renamed it.
Musk has repeatedly tweaked the platform’s algorithms to suit his own preferences. One famous instance occurred during the 2023 Super Bowl, when a tweet by then-US President Joe Biden garnered more views than a similar tweet by Musk. The angry billionaire assembled a team of engineers to "fix" the algorithm so that his tweets would receive more attention.
In addition, Musk allowed users to purchase a "blue tick" for $8 without any identity verification, which increased the spread of misinformation on the platform.
Musk's intervention in Community Notes threatens the last fact-checking tool on X. The platform has already become a hotbed of misinformation and conspiracy theories, especially after the relaxation of moderation rules.