META has announced plans to test its new ‘Community Notes’ feature across its social media platforms on March 18, 2025 as it shifts away from third-party fact-checking toward a crowdsourced approach to content moderation.
Recall that Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the transition to a user-driven Community Notes system in January 2025.
The initiative, similar to the system already implemented by X (formerly Twitter), will allow users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads to write and rate contextual notes on various content.
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Meta said approximately 200,000 potential contributors in the United States have already signed up across the three platforms.
The new approach requires contributors to be over 18 years of age with accounts more than six months old that are in good standing.
During the testing period, notes will not immediately appear on content and the company will gradually admit people from the waitlist and thoroughly test the system before public implementation.
Meta emphasized that the notes will only be published when contributors with differing viewpoints agree on their helpfulness. “This isn’t majority rules,” the company said.
“Notes also won’t have penalties associated with them the way fact-checks did. Fact-checked posts often had their distribution across our platforms reduced. That won’t be the case with posts that have notes applied to them. Notes will provide extra context, but they won’t impact who can see the content or how widely it can be shared,” part of the statement reads.
Notes will be limited to 500 characters, must include supporting links and will initially support six languages commonly used in the United States: English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, and Portuguese.me
“Our intention is ultimately to roll out this new approach to our users all over the world, but we won’t be doing that immediately,” the company said.
“Until Community Notes are launched in other countries, the third-party fact-checking programme will remain in place for them,” it added.
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Meta said that it would not be “reinventing the wheel” and will use X’s open-source algorithms as the basis of its system.
The FactCheckHub recalled that Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp announced the termination of its third-party fact-checking programme in the United States, shifting instead to a “Community Notes” system earlier this year.
By early February 2025, Joel Kaplan, Mark Zuckerberg’s second-in-command at Meta, said that community notes will launch “elsewhere” in 2026, including the EU.
This policy change aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump‘s executive order aimed at “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship,” which restricts federal officials from actions that could tread upon free speech rights.
While these developments are positioned as efforts to improve freedom of expression, they raise concerns about the potential proliferation of disinformation campaigns, particularly celebrity death hoaxes on social media.
For instance, The FactCheckHub reported that Facebook has increasingly become the hotspot for spreading disinformation, especially fake deaths of celebrities and notable individuals. Disinformation experts raised concerns over the potential of the Community Notes system to fuel hoaxes of this nature.
More than 100 fact-checking organisations under the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) condemned the decision, warning that it will undermine online accuracy and have real-world consequences.
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Fact-checkers expressed disappointment, arguing that the move threatens nearly a decade of progress in curbing misinformation in an open letter to Zuckerberg published earlier in January 2025.
They rejected Meta’s claim that fact-checking had become a tool for censorship, calling the statement ‘false’ and emphasising that their fact-checking programmes complied with strict nonpartisanship standards.
Nurudeen Akewushola is a fact-checker with FactCheckHub. He has authored several fact checks which have contributed to the fight against information disorder. You can reach him via [email protected] and @NurudeenAkewus1 via Twitter.
