Facebook’s parent company Meta will end its third-party fact-checking program and move to a Community Notes model, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today. The move comes ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 for his second term at the White House.
“We’re going to get back to our roots, and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said in a video statement on Meta’s corporate website.
Following in the footsteps of fellow tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, Zuckerberg plans to manage content on Facebook akin to Musk’s X.
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“More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X, starting in the U.S,” Zuckerberg noted.
It’s worth noting that this shift is brought about only in the United States so far, improving the program as the year goes on. The statement also disclosed that Meta will not be writing or curating the Community Notes themselves. Instead, contributing users will write and rate content.
Just like X, Meta’s Community Notes will require “an agreement between people with a range of perspectives to help prevent biased ratings,” and the tech giant intends to stay transparent about different viewpoints through the new program.
Community Notes will be rolled out to Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, the statement noted, and said that they are working on the “right way to share information.”
Recently, Meta, and other tech giants like Amazon, have been attempting to cozy up to Trump’s incoming administration through private meetings in Mar-a-Lago, donating million(s) of dollars to Trump’s inaugural fund, and more.
Meta has also put a longtime Republican Joel Kaplan in charge of global policy and appointed top Trump ally Dana White on its board of directors.
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Facebook initially launched its fact-checking system with external partners in December 2016, in response to growing criticism of the company’s role in the U.S. election that saw Trump’s first victory.
Other platforms, such as X (then Twitter), also began using outside fact-checkers until billionaire entrepreneur Musk bought the platform in 2022. The site introduced a feature in which users, instead of outside checkers, could add community notes to viral posts.
Musk is set to join Trump in the White House as part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in less than two weeks.