Meta’s Controversial Move: Replacing Fact-Checkers with Community Notes – Will It Work?

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu): On January 7, 2025 Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced it will replace its third-party fact-checking program with a new Community Notes initiative. This program, which allows users to contribute, draws inspiration from Elon Musk's social media platform, X and focuses on fostering free speech.

The company revealed that it would phase out its third-party fact-checking program, which had been managed by independent experts. Meta explained that it decided to end the program due to the biases of expert fact-checkers and the fact that an overwhelming amount of content was being fact-checked. Instead, the company will implement a user-driven Community Notes model.

Joel Kaplan, Meta's Chief Global Affairs Officer noted in a blog post, “We've seen this approach work on X – where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context.” The move also includes plans to relax certain content restrictions and focus on illegal activities and serious violations such as terrorism, child sexual exploitation and drug-related content. Meta acknowledged that its previously built complex content management systems had become overly cumbersome, leading to errors and over-censorship of content. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that these changes were partly influenced by Donald Trump’s presidential election win, which marked a cultural shift towards re-prioritizing speech.