Musk wants to “fix” community notes

Following Donald Trump's verbal attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, tech billionaire Elon Musk has backed the US president. The Trump advisor stated on Thursday that the "Community Notes" feature on his online platform X is "increasingly being abused by governments and traditional media outlets." He is working to "fix" this.

Referring to the recent exchange between Zelensky and Trump, Musk added: "It should be abundantly clear that a poll about his own approval rating controlled by Zelensky is not credible." Zelensky is "despised by the Ukrainian people, which is why he refused to organize an election," Musk wrote.

The Community Notes feature allows users to review posts that may contain misinformation and add context. Musk introduced this feature in 2022 when he acquired the online service, then known as Twitter.

Thus, X has so far relied on users and their comments on published content for fact-checking. The "collective comments" system provides a method "for people on X to collaboratively write helpful comments on potentially misleading posts," according to the online service's instructions.

Trump spreads disinformation

On Tuesday, Trump claimed that Zelensky had an approval rating of only four percent among the Ukrainian population . However, a poll published Wednesday gave Zelensky 57 percent approval.

On Wednesday, Trump then called Zelensky a "dictator without elections ." Zelensky's term officially ended in May 2024, but due to martial law, elections are currently not permitted in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy received support not only from Ukraine's allies, but also from Ukrainian internet users. For example, X circulated a fake cover of the US magazine "Time," depicting Trump as "Traitor of the Year."

Support also from Republicans

Even a few Republicans considered moderates jumped to Zelensky's defense. "Putin started this war. Putin committed war crimes. Putin is the dictator who murdered his opponents," wrote Representative Don Bacon on X, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine has been fighting a Russian invasion since February 2022 with financial and military support from European states and the former US administration of Joe Biden. In an abrupt policy shift since taking office, Trump has begun talks with Moscow on ending the fighting , but initially excluded Europe and Ukraine.