Meta announced in a blog post on Thursday that sign-ups are now open for its Community Notes program on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. This comes after the company’s decision last month to end its third-party fact-checking initiative, moving instead to a Community Notes model akin to the one used by X.
In the blog post, Meta detailed that Community Notes is designed to enable users across its platforms to recognize misleading posts and add context to them. Starting immediately, individuals based in the United States who are at least 18 years old can register to be early contributors to the program. Eligible users must have an account older than six months in good standing and must have either a verified phone number or enrollment in two-factor authentication.
Contributors in the program will have the ability to draft and submit Community Notes on posts they find misleading or confusing. Similar to X, these Notes can provide background information, tips, or additional details users may find useful. Each Note will have a 500-character limit and must include a link.
Meta specifies that for a Community Note to be made public on a post, users who typically have differing opinions must come to a consensus that the Note is helpful. Notes will not be published if there is no agreement or if consensus is that a Note is not beneficial.
Community Notes will be composed and assessed by contributors, independent from Meta itself. Adherence to Meta’s Community Standards is mandatory for all Notes. Meta states its commitment to transparency in terms of how different viewpoints shape the Notes displayed within its applications and is currently working on methods to share this information effectively.
The company intends to roll out Community Notes in the United States over the upcoming months, though it has not provided a timeline for expanding the feature to other countries. Meta’s shift away from fact-checking in favor of Community Notes has been interpreted as the company gearing itself towards more unrestricted online speech, particularly in light of potential political shifts. When announcing the change, Mark Zuckerberg expressed that past fact-checking efforts were seen as politically biased, eroding trust rather than enhancing it.
