Meta announced that they have decided to end the current third party fact checking program in the United States and instead begin moving to a Community Notes program.
Meta plans to phase in Community Notes in the US first over the next couple of months, and will continue to improve it over the course of the year.
As the transition happens, Meta will get rid of their fact-checking control, stop demoting fact checked content and, instead of overlaying full screen interstitial warnings users have to click through before they can even see the post, Meta will use a much less obtrusive label indicating that there is additional information for those who want to see it.
Meta will also change how they will enforce their policies to reduce the kind of mistakes that account for the vast majority of the censorship on their platforms.
Meta added that they have added extra staff to this work and in more cases, they are also now requiring multiple reviewers to reach a determination in order to take something down.
These changes are an attempt to return to the commitment to free expression that Mark Zuckerberg set out in his Georgetown speech. That means being vigilant about the impact of the company’s policies and systems are having on people’s ability to make their voices heard, and having the humility to change our approach when the company knows they’re getting things wrong.
(Photo source: Instagram – @Mark Zuckerberg)
