Meta Goes All Out on Community Notes
More social platforms are increasingly moving away from third-party fact-checking as a means of combating misinformation in favor of user-generated annotations on existing content. Last month, Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to cut fact-checking programs on meta platforms—Facebook, Instagram and Threads—and replace them with community notes , which add corrections and context to posts that are “confusing or potentially misleading.”
A similar feature was launched on Twitter in January 2021 as Birdwatch, which was renamed Community Notes and expanded after Elon Musk acquired the platform in 2022. Community notes exist in place of the ability to report misleading content on X. Musk both praised the feature as “amazing” and said he was “working on fixing it.” X users can still apply to contribute their own notes.
YouTube has also tested a community notes feature , which allows users to add context to videos on the platform. Those who meet the eligibility criteria can sign up for the program waitlist in the YouTube mobile app (under Profile > Settings > General > Help Keep Viewers Informed ).
When community notes are submitted to Meta platforms by approved members, other approved members must agree that the context is useful before the note is actually published in a post (though the threshold for what constitutes a “useful” note is not clear). According to Meta’s FAQ , community notes will be introduced in stages and will be available to users in apps “over the next few months.”
How to Register to Write Community Meta Notes
As of this writing, Meta has a waitlist for users who will be notified once the Community Notes beta launches. You can join the waitlist via Facebook , Instagram or Threads. Only US users are eligible to participate. You must be over 18 years of age, have an account older than 6 months and be in good standing, and have a verified phone number or two-factor authentication set up on your account.