Author: Unknown
Published on: 10/01/2025 | 00:00:00
AI Summary:
Meta’s use of fact-checking organisations will end abolished and the group will switch to a system of community notes instead. The move comes as tech executives brace for the arrival of incoming US President Donald Trump. Zuckerberg announced this week that Meta plans to roll this community note system out in the next coming months. Meta’s upcoming changes will take effect across its trio of major social media platforms. Facebook, Instagram and Threads are used by more than 3 billion people worldwide. Some experts see the move as politically motivated and could have negative implications. Twitter and Threads use third-party fact-checking organisations to verify authenticity and accuracy of content posted to each platform. These organisations evaluate content and flag misinformation for further scrutiny. Only Meta can remove content that violates its Community Standards and Ads policies. X’s Community Notes was piloted in 2021 and gained significant traction in 2023. The feature was designed to identify and highlight potentially misleading information on the platform. A Community Note typically provides a correction or clarification, frequently supported by a hyperlink to a reputable online source which can verify the information provided. Once approved by X as a Notes contributor, participants may rate other Notes as “Helpful” or “Not Helpful”. Meta has not outlined exactly how its community notes would work. Only those Notes which receive a final “Helpful” status are shown to all X users. There is debate about how well Community Notes work on X. Our mechanism tests reveal that this positive effect stems from consideration of users who had actively interacted with the misinformation (ie, observed influence),” Gao explained in the paper. Another research paper led by University of Luxembourg researchers published in April 2024 found the use of Community Notes reduced the spread of misleading posts by an average of 61.4 percent. The researchers examined 283 posts containing election claims that independent fact-checking organisations determined to be false or misleading. 209 out of 283 “misleading” posts in its sample were not being shown to all X users. The delay in moving a post to “helpful” status contributed to this. Fact-checking organisations have criticised the move, saying it is unnecessary and politically driven. Meta is deliberately aiming to placate the right wing as a second Trump presidency looms. Some experts in social media have cautioned that the change may open the door to an increase in misinformation appearing on Meta platforms. Others believe Meta may be pursuing favourable treatment from the Trump administration. Some big names in social media have actively welcomed the move. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and who will lead Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said, “This is cool” on a recent X post. Zuckerberg referred to other regions and countries in his video. “Europe has an ever-increasing number of laws, institutionalising censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there,” Zuckerberg said.
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