Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, has decided to stop its third-party fact-checking service in the US. Later it will be discontinued in other countries as well. Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement in a video message on the Metar website on Tuesday (January 7).
Mark Zuckerberg said Meta will introduce a new system called 'Community Notes', similar to Elon Musk's Platform X (formerly Twitter). With this decision, Meta seeks to balance users' freedom of expression and complaints of censorship. This will reduce reliance on independent fact-checking agencies.
Meta says that those who act as experts have their own biases and philosophies about stopping third-party factchecking. And accordingly they decide which content to fact check and which not to.
Meta says on the website that Meta will allow more freedom of expression. Therefore, the Community Guidelines will be relaxed regarding mainstream discussion content. However, illegal and sensitive matters will come under stricter scrutiny.
Apart from this, political content will be replaced by personal preference. People who like content will show up more in their feeds.
How Community Notes Work
Through the Community Notes system, meta users themselves can identify confusing or questionable posts and add relevant information to them.
Meta thinks this approach will involve more people in factchecking and avoid some accusations of bias against third-party platforms. In addition, some factchecks influence political opinion. In those cases, when users provide relevant notes, the risk of bias in the subject review is reduced.
Meta says that Meta will not write or make decisions on its own in Community Notes when this program is launched. Here the contributors will do the work of writing and rating. Giving community notes like X requires the consent of both parties to eliminate bias.
Community Notes Meta will allow users to add information or relevant explanations about what they identify as misleading posts.
Meanwhile, Meta is also going to change the content control policy. The existing automated system for illegal and more sensitive content will remain in place. For example: terrorism, child sex, drugs, fraud and scams will continue to be censored as before.
