Elon Musk Announces Plan to ‘Fix’ Community Notes After Fact-Check Contests Pro-Russia Propaganda
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Trump advisor and X owner Elon Musk announced that he was working to “fix” his social media platform’s “Community Notes” system after he disagreed with one of its fact-checks of Russian propaganda.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump stated that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has just a 4% approval rating while endorsing the Russian call for Ukraine to hold elections despite the fact that the Ukrainian constitution does not allow the government to hold elections during wartime. The president also falsely claimed that Ukraine “started” the war that began when Russian invaded it almost three years ago and blamed Zelensky for the “MILLIONS” of resulting deaths.
Community notes have been used to fact-check these accusations, which have been amplified by Trump’s allies on X. Trump’s claim about Zelensky’s approval rating is especially glaring considering the fact that most polls demonstrate that the Ukrainian leader remains quite popular. One survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology earlier this month pegs his approval rating at 57%.
Some anti-Ukraine voices, though, have continued to deny this reality. The right-wing X account @amuse, which boasts well over 500,000 followers, for example, wrote the following:
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 community estimates support at around 4% which is the number Trump has been citing. Don’t bet against Trump.
It’s unclear what the point of the post is, considering the fact that most polls of Americans are conducted by American firms made up of people who likely consider themselves loyal to the United States, but it nevertheless caught Musk’s attention.
In a quote tweet of @amuse’s post, Musk declared:
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 would hold an election. He knows he would lose in a landslide, despite having seized control of ALL Ukrainian media, so he canceled the election.
In reality, he is despised by the people of Ukraine, which is why he has refused to hold an election. I challenge Zelensky to hold an election and refute this. He will not.
President Trump is right to ignore him and solve for peace independent of the disgusting, massive graft machine feeding off the dead bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.
It is unclear upon what evidence Musk bases his claim that Zelensky is “despised by the people of Ukraine.” One American University professor who studies Ukraine told CNN that the KIIS poll, which found Zelensky at 57%, is “the best and most reliable” in Ukraine. Another poll conducted by a University of Manchester professor found Zelensky’s approval at 63%.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Zelensky revealed that he believes the 4% figure touted by Trump comes directly from Russia.
“We saw this disinformation. We understand it comes from Russia. We understand, and we have evidence that those figures have been discussed between the U.S. and Russia,” said Zelensky.
The announcement is notable as X constitutes one of the world’s most largest and most important disseminators of information, and Musk is explicitly promising to alter it in order to not only systematically promote falsehoods, but falsehoods pushed by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
