Meta announced on March 13 that it will commence testing "Community Notes" in the U.S. starting March 18, utilizing technology developed by Elon Musk's company, "X," following the elimination of its own fact-checking program two months earlier.
The feature will allow users to write and evaluate notes to identify false or misleading content on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, transitioning fact-checking from third-party teams to a crowd-sourced model.
Approximately 200,000 U.S. users have enrolled to potentially contribute to this initiative.
The shift to Community Notes represents Meta's most significant content management revision in recent times and is part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to enhance relations with the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump, a critic of social media platforms, approved of Meta's decision in January.
Meta will use an open-source algorithm from X to construct its rating system for the new model, having been inspired by a similar feature introduced by a rival company in 2022.
Initially, Community Notes on Meta will be limited to 500 characters and accessible in six languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, and Portuguese.
These notes will be posted anonymously and will only be published if contributors with diverse perspectives agree that they offer valuable context.
Contributors must be over 18 years old and include a relevant link to support their notes; Meta asserts that this system is "less biased" compared to third-party fact-checking mechanisms.
Upon the introduction of Community Notes, third-party fact-check labels will be phased out in the U.S., according to Meta.
The company, boasting over 3 billion users globally, collaborates with nearly 100 certified fact-checking organizations across more than 60 languages, as stated on its website.