Beginning on Monday, the fact-checking program on Meta’s platforms will come to an end in the United States. Joel Kaplan, the newly appointed chief of global policy at Meta, announced this deadline in a Friday post on X. Kaplan stated that by Monday afternoon, the fact-checking initiative in the U.S. would officially conclude, which will result in the cessation of new fact checks and the absence of fact-checkers. Instead, Community Notes will gradually appear across Facebook, Threads, and Instagram without any penalties being applied.
In early January, two weeks prior to President Trump starting his second term, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook, Instagram, and Threads would replace their fact-checking program with Community Notes similar to those on X. Zuckerberg justified this shift in content moderation by arguing that fact-checkers had been excessively biased, thereby undermining trust rather than fostering it.
According to Meta, the revised policy aims to protect free speech and address political censorship. However, civil rights and digital policy experts express concerns that this decision might lead to an unchecked increase in propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation on Meta’s platforms. Meta’s introduction of crowd-sourced Community Notes resembles an approach previously adopted by X under Elon Musk’s leadership, where misinformation and hate speech reportedly rose after his takeover.
Meta has already started beta testing Community Notes and is inviting users to become contributors. To qualify as a contributor, users must be over 18, have an account older than six months, and be in “good standing.” However, Meta will reportedly not implement Community Notes on paid advertisements, allowing users to voice contentious or offensive statements by paying for ad space.
Simultaneously, as Meta announced the end of its fact-checking program, the company also terminated its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and relaxed its policies concerning hate speech.
