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Tories upset over bombardment of community notes reminded of their last fact check stunt

A Tory-leaning newspaper has appealed to Elon Musk to help stem the flood of community notes that are showing up on prominent Conservative accounts.

It was revealed in this newspaper that two-thirds of the prime minister’s posts on X were community-noted last week as doubts over his pledge to run an administration based on “integrity, professionalism and accountability” were raised.

There have been instances in Rishi Sunak’s tenure that his account has been flagged three times in a day, such is the degree of misinformation making its way to his account.

Now, Tory-leaning newspaper Conservative Post has appealed directly to Elon Musk to help stem the tsunami of warnings.

They even enlisted a leading legal mind, although as The Secret Barrister account pointed out, that claim may need to be fact-checked too.

Social media users have also been quick to point out that the Conservative Party also engaged in a little Fact Check tomfoolery at the last election when they rebranded their own account to appear as though it was a fact-checking service.

The move was criticised by independent fact-checking charity Full Fact at the time, which tweeted:

“It is inappropriate and misleading for the Conservative press office to rename their twitter account ‘factcheckUK’ during this debate. Please do not mistake it for an independent fact-checking service such as @FullFact, @FactCheck or @FactCheckNI”

Royle Family star Ralf Little also piled on by rebranding his own account and starting a hilarious pile-on.

Related: Rosie Holt mocks politicians with hilarious Post Office interview

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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