On January 7, 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook, Instagram, and Threads will have a community notes system instead of fact-checking.
Previously, these social media platforms had dedicated fact-checkers for content moderation.
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“This approach has gone too far,” said Joel Kaplan, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer.
Consequently, the company will reaffirm its “fundamental commitment to free expression” with Twitter-esque “community notes.”
Meta’s Community Notes for “free-er” speech?
The Meta announcement says the company has developed complex content management systems in response to societal and political pressure.
However, Kaplan says these limitations have only caused Meta to make “too many mistakes, frustrating our users, and get in the way of free expression.”
Specifically, many found themselves trapped in “Facebook jail” because the social networking company responded too slowly.
That’s why Meta will adopt a Community Notes program reminiscent of X (formerly Twitter).
It enables fellow social media users to flag potentially misleading posts that require more context. Then, others can provide more details.
Similar to X, Meta’s Community Notes will “require agreement between people with a range of perspectives to help prevent biased ratings.”
As a result, Kaplan believes this system will be more effective in “providing people with information about what they’re seeing.”
More importantly, it will be “one that’s less prone to bias.”
On one hand, some supported Meta’s bold new move, such as Founders Fund chief marketing officer Mike Solana.
He believed fact-checkers were biased, so this shift would “end a golden age for the worst people alive.”
On the other, many prominent media figures expressed their disappointment, such as Mr. Michael Wagner, from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Meta now seems to rely on just anyone to stop misinformation from spreading on their platforms,” he told AFP.
“Asking people, pro bono, to police the false claims that get posted on Meta’s multi-billion dollar social media platforms is an abdication of social responsibility.”
The Freedom of the Press Foundation posted on X competitor BlueSky that the move is likely about “sucking up to Donald Trump that it is about free speech.”
President Donald Trump promised to end “woke culture” by championing free speech in the United States, especially in educational institutions.
Meta says the Community Notes program will roll out “over the next couple of months,” starting in the US.