Meta announced on Tuesday that it’s ending its fact-checking program in the U.S. and is replacing it with a “Community Notes” system similar to Elon Musk’s-owned X.
The new Community Notes model will now allow users on Meta’s social media sites Facebook, Instagram and Threads to call out posts that are potentially misleading and need more context.
This will take away from placing the responsibility on independent fact checking organizations and experts. “Experts, like everyone else, have their own biases and perspectives. This showed up in the choices some made about what to fact check and how … A program intended to inform too often became a tool to censor,” Meta said.
Additionally, Meta said that its efforts over the years to manage content across its platforms have expanded “to the point where we are making too many mistakes, frustrating our users and too often getting in the way of the free expression we set out to enable.”
The Community Notes feature will be added in the United States over the next couple of months, according to the Facebook parent. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cited the recent election as a driving force in the company’s decision, slamming “governments and legacy media” as pushing the company to “censor more and more.”
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech,” he said. “So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.” The platform will also stop demoting fact-checked content and use a label notifying users there is additional information related to the post, instead of the company’s current method of displaying full-screen warnings that users have to click through before viewing the post.
