Meta, the social media giant led by Mark Zuckerberg, has announced plans to end its third-party fact-checking program. This is to foster freer expression across its platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. The Company will transit to a Community Note program, mirroring the approach successfully implemented by Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter).
Joel Kaplan, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, shared the news in a blog post, stating that the change will begin in the U.S. Kaplan explained that while the fact-checking program was designed to provide users with more information about viral content, it has inadvertently led to widespread censorship.
“Over time, we ended up with too much content being fact-checked that people would understand to be legitimate political speech and debate,” Kaplan said. He noted that this had resulted in intrusive labels and reduced distribution for posts, which was not the original intent.
The new Community Note program aims to leverage user-generated input to provide context to potentially misleading posts. Kaplan pointed out the success of this model on X, where diverse user perspectives contribute to deciding what context is necessary. “We’ve seen this approach work on X, where the community decides when posts need more context,” Kaplan stated. He said this method could better align with Meta’s goal of providing information without bias.
Under the Community Note system, Meta will not directly create or control the notes. Instead, contributing users will write and rate the notes, ensuring a range of perspectives to prevent biased ratings. Kaplan also promised transparency in how different viewpoints shape the notes displayed across Meta’s platforms.
This announcement follows a period of scrutiny for Meta’s content moderation practices. High-profile figures, including U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, have criticized the company for censoring conservative voices. Trump, who was temporarily banned from Facebook after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, labeled Meta an “enemy of the people.” His account was reinstated in 2023.
In December 2024, Meta revealed that while it removes millions of pieces of content daily, mistakes accounted for 10-20% of these actions.
