In November, Mr Sunak told Mr Musk that the X community notes system was “interesting”. Photo: Tolga Akmen/EPA
Rishi Sunak is checked on Twitter more often than other world leaders, raising suspicions in Downing Street that the system is being abused.
Prime Minister used 'community notes' to tweet about inflation, taxes and immigration 18 times in the last six months, more than any other G7 leader.
US President Joe Biden's presidential account was fact-checked nine times over the same period, while Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau each received just one community note.
The recent increase in the number of notes on Mr Sunak's account has attracted attention of staff No. 10. This is believed to have raised suspicions among the Prime Minister's team, who suggested that activists could cheat the system.
< p lang="ru" dir="ltr">As of today, 27 million workers people will pay less taxes.
It was a difficult decision to get to the point where we could cut taxes responsibly, but as soon as we could, we did.
Conservatives believe in low taxes. If we can go further this year, responsibly and sustainably, we will. pic.twitter.com/zvqObsi1eX
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) January 6, 2024
Community notes are additional tags under tweets written by anonymous contributors and voted on by users. This feature has been supported by Elon Musk since the billionaire bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X.
Notes appear when Twitter users have collectively voted that a tweet is misleading and should be corrected. or uses facts. out of context and requires clarification.
The recent increase in the number of labels placed on Mr Sunak's account included five fact checks in the first week of January alone.
Several Twitter accounts tweeted several notes about Mr Sunak's account and also suggested fact-checking. about other prominent Conservative Party profiles.
The community notes attached to the Prime Minister's account include one that disputes Mr Sunak's claim to cut taxes by cutting National Insurance contributions and points out, that frozen tax thresholds have increased the burden on many households.
Another questions the Prime Minister's claim to cut inflation, saying it is the Bank of England's remit.
Mr Sunak's claim in December that he had overseen the “biggest ever decline in net migration” has also been disputed. with a caption saying net migration was up from last year, contrary to the Prime Minister's six-month determination.
Halve inflation, then cut taxes.
That was the plan – we are sticking to it. pic.twitter.com/4BXeD9XVC7
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) January 4, 2024
Mr Biden's account has been checked more times overall since the feature only arrived in the UK last year.
However, Mr Sunak has come under more attack, often over the period when community notes were available both in the US , as well as in the US.
Mr Sunak is the 78th most fact-checked Twitter user, behind Mr Biden and Mr Musk, according to an online community notes table. The official Conservative Party account ranks 137th in fact-checked accounts.
Keir Starmer's Twitter account has undergone four fact checks, mostly related to last year's local elections.
The leaders of Germany, Japan and Italy have not flagged their accounts.
Community notes include volunteers offering to tag high-profile users' posts, as well as a subset of users voting for them to see if they will be featured permanently. Sunak told Musk in November that the community notes system was “interesting.” At an event with the billionaire during the AI Security Summit at Bletchley Park, the Prime Minister said: “You've moved away from the manual human moderation to community notes and I think that's been an interesting change. it's not what everyone else has done.”
Mr. Musk responded: “The overall desire of Platform X is to inform and entertain the public, and to be as accurate and truthful as possible, even if someone I don’t like the truth.”
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