Meta's crowd-sourced Community Notes testing starts from March 18

Meta

Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of popular social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram, will start testing its new Community Notes fact-checking tool, based on crowdsourcing soon, as a part of a shift toward having users police content on its social media platforms themselves. The move comes after Meta shut down its official fact-checking program in January, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg claiming that fact-checkers had become politically influenced.

Last week, Meta revealed in a blog post, revealed about its new content moderation tool and said it incorporates the same open-source algorithm that powers X’s Community Notes. Meta said that over time, it plans to modify the algorithm to better serve its Facebook, Instagram, and Threads platforms. The move followed years of accusations by conservatives that fact-checking efforts often labeled legitimate viewpoints as misinformation for political or ideological reasons.

Initially, Meta began fact-checking in December 2016, after President Donald Trump was elected to his first term, in response to criticism that fake news was spreading on its platforms. However, with the latest Community Notes move, Meta users in the U.S. can sign up to contribute to Community Notes and the platform will gradually approve contributors from a waitlist.

Users can then contribute, write, and rate notes, similar to how it’s being done on X, but these won’t be published immediately. A note will only be published if contributors with diverse viewpoints agree on its accuracy. Moreover, Meta has also confirmed that Community Notes won’t penalize posts based on their content. As for its rollout, Community Notes testing will begin on March 18, with fact-checking partnerships remaining active outside the U.S. for now. Meta has also confirmed that it eventually plans to expand Community Notes globally soon.