The company is suggesting that its work with traditional fact checkers could come to an end.
Meta
Meta is beginning its international expansion of Community Notes. The company said it is with US-based fact checking organizations.
The company says it plans to take a similar approach with its initial tests in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The platform is starting to onboard contributors to who, if approved, will be able to write notes that add "additional context" to posts on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. During the testing phase, contributors' notes will not be surfaced to users and "there will be no changes to third-party fact checking," Meta says in a blog post originally published in Spanish.
But the company goes on to suggest that it intends for Community Notes to eventually replace existing fact-checking arrangements in these countries. "When we're confident the product is working well and can be successful, we will look at fully launching – beginning to publish Community Notes and transitioning our third-party fact checking program," Meta writes, according to a translation provided by the company.
Unsurprisingly, Meta's move to potentially end fact checking in a large swath of Latin America has alarmed fact checking organizations. In
The Oversight Board, which has previously warned Meta that expanding Community Notes outside of the US would come with ", also seemed troubled. "We urge Meta not to consider community notes a direct replacement for factchecking, and to use all the tools that best address the challenge of misinformation on its platforms in ways that both protect free expression and address potential harms," the board said in
In its guidance, the board cautioned against bringing Community Notes to countries experiencing "high polarization," "protracted conflict" and those with a history of organized disinformation networks. Meta is disregarding that advice, according to the IFCN. "Meta is testing its community notes in some countries that face precisely one or more of these circumstances. Nicaragua, for example, has abolished elections and is actively practicing arbitrary detention of political dissidents. Disinformation networks have been well documented in El Salvador and Ecuador. And Venezuela has been in an extended state of instability. " When reached for comment, Meta didn't address the criticism directly. A spokesperson said there were "no changes to our third-party fact checking program at this time. " The company has said that Community Notes has been a success in the United States, where it has 1.4 million contributors. Others have raised questions about the effectiveness of Meta's program compared with X. The publication