Political motives help rather than hinder crowdsourced fact-checking

Social media platforms are adopting crowd-based strategies for identifying false or misleading content. However, existing theories suggest laypeople can be politically biased, and these political motives undermine accuracy. Alternatively, we propose that political and accuracy motives operate separately, and show theoretically that this implies that more politically motivated individuals may often be more accurate. We empirically assess this proposal using a survey study and field data from X’s Community Notes. As predicted, politically discordant false posts are flagged most often, and more politically motivated users flag more posts while exhibiting equal or higher flagging discernment (along with more political bias). These users also provision high-quality ratings without undermining system-level outcomes. Politically motivated individuals are integral to provisioning a high quantity and quality of crowdsourced fact-checks.