Community Notes: Crowd Participation and Dependence on Professional Fact-Checking Across Languages

TL;DR

This study examines how different language communities participate in X's Community Notes crowd-sourced fact-checking, revealing varying engagement levels and limited reliance on professional fact-checkers across languages.

Contribution

It provides new insights into multilingual participation in crowd-sourced fact-checking and compares reliance on professional resources across linguistic communities.

Findings

Strong uptake in some linguistic communities

Limited overall reliance on professional fact-checkers

Notes citing professionals are rated more helpful

Abstract

Crowd-sourced fact-checking provides social media platforms with a promising method of managing misinformation at scale. However, the success of fact-checking programs like X's Community Notes requires the participation of a critical mass of note-writers who have the time and epistemic resources necessary to write and rate high-quality notes. As X's Community Notes program was first established in English-speaking countries, much academic research has focused on English-language notes or notes writ large. Relatively little research has investigated how different linguistic communities utilise Community Notes. Thus, it is unclear whether Community Notes or similar crowd-sourced fact-checking initiatives represent a viable alternative to social media platforms' partnerships with professional fact-checking organisations across linguistic contexts. This research identifies how different linguistic communities participate in volunteer fact-checking efforts on X's Community Notes program and addresses volunteers' reliance on professional fact-checking resources differs across languages. We find that while the Community Notes program has had strong uptake in some linguistic communities, the program has failed to catch on in others. Additionally, we confirm findings that notes that cite professional fact-checkers are considered more helpful, but show that reliance on professional fact-checking overall remains minimal.