The study published by the Digital Democracy Institute (DDIA) highlights significant limitations in the Community Notes program, a platform led by Elon Musk’s technology giant, which has gained popularity through a community-driven verification model. Over 90% of the notes submitted to the program, according to the study, do not reach the public testing stage. This finding underscores the inherent challenges of using such a decentralized system as a general debunking tool.
The reason for this widespread underperformance is tied to the lack of consensus among participants in the moderation model. Without open dialogue and collective judgment, notes often remain unverified or unSEMbedded, even when they contain strong points that could contribute to citizen control. Meanwhile, notes from around 40 countries reached “helpful” ratings from just 10% of users, yet more than 49% of notes globally were never submitted or verified at all, indicating that many ideas remain unseen and unpubished.
The report also reveals some progress in verification rates. For English notes, only 9.5% reached publication in 2023, while this number dropped to 4.9% in early 2025. In contrast, Spanish-language notes saw some improvement, rising to 7.1% in the same period, signaling that the language barrier is still a significant hurdle. Similar trends were observed in Dutch and French notes, where 85% of Dutch posts and 73% of French notes verified successfully in 2025, indicating an increasing wave of better consistency in the system.
Despite these advancements, the impact of Community Notes on fact-checking and verification is more about a focal point than a solution to societal issues. The study questions its appeal as a replacement for conventional fact-checking, which conservative advocates argue has been harming US popularity due to its liberal bias and reliance on polarizing viewpoints. The current model, instead,.camelcases users in zones based on language, user ID, and the original post, resulting in authentic contributors like a bot-like account dedicated to detecting crypto scams.
The Bot-like account, identified by the research, submitted over 43,000 notes between 2021 and 2025, with only 3.1% converting to public status in the same period, suggesting a lack of consensus among users. This suggests that Authoritative_registries are nearly impossible to maintain as comparisons with traditional fact-checkingfailed previously. The bot’s interactions with the public reveal its community-driven nature and the unpredictable behavior of its contributors.
The shift toward Community Notes accommodates a diverse range of viewpoints and platforms, despite some concerns about accuracy and ethics. It also includes-rankedots account, raising questions about whether this format might inadvertently perpetuate partisan bias. The study notes that detailing the decision-making process behind these accounts involved **billions of dollars on a small team of developers and 2,000 employees, and few users actually tested or saw the notes at public testing sites.
Even if the system promotes rapid verification, it risks failing to catch real-world false narratives, toxic content, or errors left in the aftermath of events that take days before weeks. The findings are significant because the community-driven approach may provide a faster verification system compared to professional fact-checking, which is one of the largest contributors to false narratives in American politics.
The emergence of new features in Musk’s AI chatbot Grok, which sparked online).*’s backlash, further complicates the analysis. While the fact-checking system has been a game-changer for identifying misinformation, its limitations are as significant, particularly in cases where misinformation arises from biased origins or symbolic narratives. The study advocates for a shift towards a localized, community-driven system like Community Notes, which may offer a more ambitious and cohesive way of addressing complex issues.
Over the past two years, many contributors to the system haveissioned arguments with partisan motives or targeted their political opponents, marking a decline in mainstream verification efforts. The board of the United States Communication Safety Commission has repeatedly called for such a system to be replaced by traditional fact-checking, raising concerns that Community Notes may have increasingly undermined accountability in democratic governance.
In conclusion, the Democratization of verification through Community Notes offers a novel approach to digitizing fact-checking, yet its failure to cope with the unpredictability of real-world events remains a defining critique. TheBuilder’s starting point is crucial, and its future relies not solely on human judgment but on a group of dedicated volunteers with diverse priorities, both in terms of expertise and commitment to democratic integrity.