Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has officially begun phasing out its third-party fact-checking program in the United States, replacing it with a community-based approach known as Community Notes. This shift, which commenced in early April 2025, marks a significant change in how the tech giant addresses misinformation on its platforms. The move has sparked considerable debate, with supporters praising it as a victory for free expression and critics expressing concerns about the potential proliferation of unchecked falsehoods.

The decision to replace fact-checkers with Community Notes stems from Meta's belief that the previous system had become too biased and was not scalable. According to Meta, expert fact-checkers, like everyone else, possess their own perspectives, which influenced their decisions regarding what to fact-check and how. Furthermore, Meta acknowledged that its content moderation efforts had "gone too far," leading to the censorship of harmless content and frustrating users. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that changes were initiated, in part, by the 2024 presidential election.

Inspired by a similar system implemented on X (formerly Twitter), Community Notes aims to leverage the collective intelligence of platform users to provide context and identify potentially misleading information. The system allows users to submit and rate notes on viral posts. These notes will only appear publicly if contributors with a range of viewpoints broadly agree on their accuracy. Meta has emphasized that it will not decide what gets rated or written, ensuring that the community drives the content moderation process.

One key difference between the Community Notes system and the previous fact-checking program is that posts with Community Notes will not be penalized. Under the old system, posts flagged as misinformation by fact-checkers often had their distribution reduced. However, Meta believes that Community Notes should provide extra context without impacting who can see the content or how widely it can be shared.

Meta began testing Community Notes in the U.S. in March 2025, inviting users to sign up as contributors. The rollout is expected to be gradual, and notes may not appear publicly immediately as the company tests the writing and rating system. Meta plans to extend Community Notes to other countries in the future, but the third-party fact-checking program will remain in place for those regions until the new system is implemented.

While Meta anticipates that Community Notes will be less biased and operate at a greater scale than the previous fact-checking program, the move has been met with skepticism from some corners. Media experts and those who study social media have expressed concerns that the shift could legitimize disinformation narratives and remove a valuable resource for users seeking accurate information. Some argue that fact-checkers provide an essential service by adding context to viral claims that mislead millions of users. It remains to be seen whether Community Notes will effectively combat misinformation while upholding free expression on Meta's platforms.