It’s not perfect and it continues to be controversial for different reasons, but the new X Community Notes moderation program counts now a million X users who are actively reviewing and approving the content that can be seen on the platform.
built by the people, for the people.@CommunityNotes now with one million contributors worldwide. pic.twitter.com/aCgk420lfe
— X (@X) May 12, 2025
That is a very signifiant milestone for the program. The model is built on diversifying the voices and delegating control over in-platform moderation. So the more contributors, the better. And overall, the program is viewed as a huge success, internally at least. X executives also boast that both Meta and TikTok have now moved to implement similar Community Notes-style approaches to complement their own moderation systems.
Also Read | X Experiments with Reddit-Style Upvotes and Downvotes
Well, the truth is likely a bit different.
Community Notes was something Elon Musk had been hinting at ever since he took control of the then called Twitter platform. Musk wanted the user base to decide what should be allowed to be published, and what should be restricted, as opposed to leaving that decision up to management.
Theoretically, handing over moderation controls to the users removes a key concern in owner bias, something Musk has repeatedly accused the previous management and ownership of doing, saying they often used the platform to support their own purpose.
While that may be true, it feels like X has become an even less independent voice.
Despite having a million contributors, it seems content moderation remains a bit controversial on X.
According to analysis conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) last year, 73% of Community Notes related to political topics are never displayed on X, despite these notes providing valuable context.
Both X and Meta have repeatedly pointed to studies which show that Community Notes can significantly reduce the spread of misleading posts by over 60%, mostly because user-generated annotations are perceived as significantly more trustworthy than simple misinformation flag. But these annotations can only be relevant when displayed on the posts they are related to.
And most Community Notes on X are not displayed.
That is because Notes are only shown when there is agreement that a Note is necessary between contributors of opposing political backgrounds. Add to that reports that the program could have been infiltrated by organized groups of contributors that collaborate to upvote or downvote Notes based on their ideology.
The good news, is that 1 million contributors are a lot harder to influence.