Hyderabad:

The Zuckerberg-led company says that it expects Community Notes to be less biased than the third-party fact-checking program because it allows more people with more perspectives to add context to posts. Notably, the fact-checking program was launched in 2016 and Meta decided to replace it with a community notes system in January 2025.

Meta has announced the upcoming arrival of crowd-sourced Community Notes across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, starting March 18, 2025, in the United States. This new approach replaces Meta's third-party fact-checking program. The test will allow contributors from the community to write and rate notes on content across social platforms owned by Meta.

"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 said, adding that turning to fact-checking organisations did not play out as it had expected, particularly in the United States.

One big difference between fact checks and community notes is the effect on posts' reach. Notes will not have penalties associated with them the way fact checks did. Notes will just provide extra context and will not impact who can see the content or how widely it can be shared.

Community Notes: How do they work?

"Meta won’t decide what gets rated or written – contributors from our community will. And to safeguard against bias, notes won’t be published unless contributors with a range of viewpoints broadly agree on them," it said.

In a press note, Meta explains that their Community Notes works more or less like X's community notes system where users add context to posts. It uses X's open-source algorithm as the basis of its rating system. It will allow Meta to focus on improving the system instead of reinventing the wheel.

Meta further clarifies that its Community Notes won't be based on majority rules. It says that irrespective of the number of contributors agreeing on a note, it won't be published unless people who normally disagree decide that it provides helpful context.

Community Notes start with the US:

Notes will not appear publicly in the initial phase as Meta wants to take time to ensure the system works properly. It will first test the writing and rating system before publishing any notes publicly. Around 2 lakh potential contributors have signed up for Community Notes in the US across all three apps, Meta said.

Meta says that it plans to roll out this new approach to its users across the world. However, it will not be pursuing this immediately. Until Community Notes are launched in other countries, the third-party fact-checking program will remain in place for them, Meta adds.

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