Marking a significant policy change, Meta Platforms Inc., – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – said on March 18, 2025 that it will start testing crowd-sourced fact-checking initiative, “Community Notes.” The program is a copycat of the system used by Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) and is an almost complete turnaround from Meta’s past fact-checking methods.
Meta had ended its fact-checking program in January to address worries over partisan bias. In the past, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that third-party fact-checkers had become “biased towards the left,” reflecting the concerns of conservative groups. This step, however, has faced criticism from media specialists, who say it undermines work against spreading of fake news.
“Fact-checkers are doing relevant work outside fact-checking – they put in critical context around viral claims,” said Dan Evon, lead writer for RumorGuard, a digital tool by the News Literacy Tasks. “Meta’s move could give credence to the idea that fact-checking is biased,” 
The new Community Notes system will allow U.S. users to join as contributors but their notes will not be live immediately. Meta will roll out users and test writing and rating processes before publishing the notes to the public. Different to past system, Community Notes won’t slash the share of flagged content.
Meta has said that although traditional fact-checking will stay in place outside the U.S. for the time being, plans to roll it out globally remain afoot for Community Notes. The Associated Press has pulled out of Meta’s original fact-checking program more than a year ago.
