On Thursday, Meta announced the pilot launch of Community Notes across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the United States of America, starting March 18. Meta's upcoming Community Notes will replace the fact-checking program with community moderators, similar to the fact-checking program introduced on X, previously known as Twitter, in 2021 to move away from third-party fact-checkers. Meta also claims that they aren't building the Community Notes program from scratch but will use X’s open-source algorithm and build on top of it. "We expect Community Notes to be less biased than the third-party fact-checking program it replaces and to operate at a greater scale when it is fully up and running. When we launched the fact-checking program in 2016, we were clear that we didn’t want to be the arbiters of truth and believed that turning to expert fact-checking organizations was the best solution available. But that’s not how it played out, particularly in the United States. Experts, like everyone else, have their own political biases and perspectives. This showed up in the choices some made about what to fact-check and how," Meta wrote in a press statement. Meta emphasizes that Community Notes, compared to third-party fact-checking, will be less biased, allowing contributors from the same platform to write and rate notes on specific posts across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Meta will sign up over 200,000 potential contributors in the U.S. across its platforms while keeping the waitlist open for users interested in participating in the fact-checking program. To participate, one needs to be at least 18 years old. What are Community Notes, and how do they work on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads? Community Notes provide contextual information on posts that may be misleading or require additional clarification. Evaluated by other community members, these notes ensure broad agreement across diverse viewpoints in a publicly visible format. This system draws inspiration from a similar approach implemented by Elon Musk's platform, X. Meta also states, "It won’t decide what gets rated or written – contributors from our community will." To safeguard against bias, a Community Note needs to be agreed upon by a wide variety of contributors before it gets published. Each Community Note will have a 500-character limit and must include a link that supports the note. However, a Community Note will not include an author’s name, and at launch, Community Notes will support English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, and Portuguese.
