Zürcher Nachrichten - 'Stuck in limbo': Over 90% of X's Community Notes unpublished, study says

EUR -
AED 4.317442
AFN 82.280732
ALL 97.973412
AMD 451.334081
ANG 2.103685
AOA 1077.878551
ARS 1475.878439
AUD 1.792929
AWG 2.118731
AZN 1.979957
BAM 1.964626
BBD 2.373362
BDT 143.108616
BGN 1.956761
BHD 0.443149
BIF 3452.268306
BMD 1.17544
BND 1.506869
BOB 8.122488
BRL 6.540263
BSD 1.175481
BTN 101.506993
BWP 16.385608
BYN 3.846881
BYR 23038.630847
BZD 2.361207
CAD 1.599418
CDF 3392.321088
CHF 0.931418
CLF 0.029122
CLP 1117.526924
CNY 8.433546
CNH 8.430552
COP 4786.675208
CRC 592.863279
CUC 1.17544
CUP 31.149169
CVE 110.785192
CZK 24.616539
DJF 208.899272
DKK 7.464388
DOP 70.998441
DZD 152.515562
EGP 57.676534
ERN 17.631605
ETB 160.680906
FJD 2.63792
FKP 0.870925
GBP 0.868627
GEL 3.185027
GGP 0.870925
GHS 12.253977
GIP 0.870925
GMD 84.631694
GNF 10174.611298
GTQ 9.021527
GYD 245.924751
HKD 9.226684
HNL 30.972849
HRK 7.535869
HTG 154.25294
HUF 399.002636
IDR 19110.544288
ILS 3.92509
IMP 0.870925
INR 101.489694
IQD 1539.826858
IRR 49500.730439
ISK 142.404282
JEP 0.870925
JMD 188.496771
JOD 0.833415
JPY 172.384229
KES 152.215408
KGS 102.79252
KHR 4722.919448
KMF 496.035863
KPW 1057.932758
KRW 1622.894714
KWD 0.358656
KYD 0.979601
KZT 627.187471
LAK 25348.371527
LBP 105260.683334
LKR 354.575293
LRD 236.263473
LSL 20.711055
LTL 3.47077
LVL 0.711012
LYD 6.37674
MAD 10.613061
MDL 19.935555
MGA 5207.200983
MKD 61.83594
MMK 2467.194078
MNT 4218.982661
MOP 9.504597
MRU 46.805846
MUR 53.603261
MVR 18.104167
MWK 2041.085362
MXN 21.924725
MYR 4.973877
MZN 75.181368
NAD 20.710743
NGN 1799.351869
NIO 43.197145
NOK 11.843796
NPR 162.41159
NZD 1.960064
OMR 0.451962
PAB 1.175481
PEN 4.184212
PGK 4.876608
PHP 66.901956
PKR 334.912319
PLN 4.253742
PYG 8938.889389
QAR 4.279306
RON 5.069083
RSD 117.131444
RUB 92.273012
RWF 1690.870943
SAR 4.409502
SBD 9.738635
SCR 16.614687
SDG 705.849512
SEK 11.184961
SGD 1.503031
SHP 0.923712
SLE 27.035133
SLL 24648.401045
SOS 671.761896
SRD 43.060497
STD 24329.242027
STN 24.919335
SVC 10.284896
SYP 15282.9083
SZL 20.711318
THB 37.825618
TJS 11.284493
TMT 4.125796
TND 3.382327
TOP 2.753001
TRY 47.521584
TTD 7.982861
TWD 34.551951
TZS 3067.899307
UAH 49.103221
UGX 4217.947996
USD 1.17544
UYU 47.463216
UZS 14957.478387
VES 140.423509
VND 30731.887934
VUV 139.605577
WST 3.098618
XAF 658.917007
XAG 0.029912
XAU 0.000343
XCD 3.176687
XCG 2.118517
XDR 0.820291
XOF 660.597177
XPF 119.331742
YER 283.222382
ZAR 20.638675
ZMK 10580.382421
ZMW 27.183113
ZWL 378.491313
  • CMSC

    0.0900

    22.314

    +0.4%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    22.285

    +0.11%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    69.04

    0%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    10.74

    +0.37%

  • RELX

    0.0300

    53

    +0.06%

  • RIO

    -0.1400

    59.33

    -0.24%

  • GSK

    0.1300

    41.45

    +0.31%

  • NGG

    0.2700

    71.48

    +0.38%

  • BP

    0.1750

    30.4

    +0.58%

  • BTI

    0.7150

    48.215

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    0.7900

    91.02

    +0.87%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.13

    +0.15%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    9.85

    +0.1%

  • BCE

    -0.0600

    22.445

    -0.27%

  • RYCEF

    0.1000

    12

    +0.83%

  • AZN

    -0.1200

    73.71

    -0.16%

'Stuck in limbo': Over 90% of X's Community Notes unpublished, study says
'Stuck in limbo': Over 90% of X's Community Notes unpublished, study says / Photo: Alain JOCARD - AFP/File

'Stuck in limbo': Over 90% of X's Community Notes unpublished, study says

More than 90 percent of X's Community Notes -- a crowd-sourced verification system popularized by Elon Musk's platform -- are never published, a study said Wednesday, highlighting major limits in its effectiveness as a debunking tool.

Text size:

The study by the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA), which analyzed the entire public dataset of 1.76 million notes published by X between January 2021 and March 2025, comes as the platform's CEO Linda Yaccarino resigned after two years at the helm.

The community-driven moderation model -- now embraced by major tech platforms including Facebook-owner Meta and TikTok -- allows volunteers to contribute notes that add context or corrections to posts.

Other users then rate the proposed notes as "helpful" or "not helpful." If the notes get "helpful" ratings from enough users with diverse perspectives, they are published on X, appearing right below the challenged posts.

"The vast majority of submitted notes -- more than 90 percent -- never reach the public," DDIA's study said.

"For a program marketed as fast, scalable, and transparent, these figures should raise serious concerns."

Among English notes, the publication rate dropped from 9.5 percent in 2023 to just 4.9 percent in early 2025, the study said.

Spanish-language notes, however, showed some growth, with the publication rate rising from 3.6 percent to 7.1 percent over the same period, it added.

A vast number of notes remain unpublished due to lack of consensus among users during rating.

Thousands of notes also go unrated, possibly never seen and never assessed, according to the report.

"As the volume of notes submitted grows, the system's internal visibility bottleneck becomes more apparent –- especially in English," the study said.

"Despite a rising number of contributors submitting notes, many notes remain stuck in limbo, unseen and unevaluated by fellow contributors, a crucial step for notes to be published."

- 'Viral misinformation' -

In a separate finding, DDIA's researchers identified not a human but a bot-like account -- dedicated to flagging crypto scams –- as the most prolific contributor to the program in English, submitting more than 43,000 notes between 2021 and March 2025.

However, only 3.1 percent of those notes went live, suggesting most went unseen or failed to gain consensus, the report said.

The study also noted that the time it takes for a note to go live had improved over the years, dropping from an average of more than 100 days in 2022 to 14 days in 2025.

"Even this faster timeline is far too slow for the reality of viral misinformation, timely toxic content, or simply errors about real-time events, which spread within hours, not weeks," DDIA's report said.

The findings are significant as tech platforms increasingly view the community-driven model as an alternative to professional fact-checking, which conservative advocates in countries such as the United States have long accused of a liberal bias.

Studies have shown Community Notes can work to dispel some falsehoods such as vaccine misinformation, but researchers have long cautioned that it works best for topics where there is broad consensus.

Some researchers have also cautioned that Community Notes users can be motivated by partisan motives and tend to target their political opponents.

X introduced Community Notes during the tenure of Yaccarino, who said on Wednesday that she had decided to step down after leading the company through a major transformation.

No reason was given for her exit, but the resignation came as Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok triggered an online firestorm over its anti-Semitic comments that praised Adolf Hitler and insulted Islam in separate posts on X.

W.F.Portman--NZN