Fact-checking becoming shared 'community' work

Meta's community notes, a concept borrowed from X, throws fact checking open to the public. Will it work?

- REWATI KARAN

MARK ZUCKERBERG'S META, the parent company of social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Threads, has started testing its new community notes fact-checking tool based on crowdsourcing, where accuracy of the post and its verification is left to the user's wisdom. This is a borrowed concept from Elon Musk's X. The change replaces conventional third-party fact-checking on Meta's platforms, which was shut down this January on the pretext that fact-checkers had become politically biased, hence the move is intended to encourage "free speech" and "counter bias and censorships". CEO Zuckerberg, in a blog post, had said that it was "time to get back to our roots around free expression". "We will allow more speech by lifting restrictions on some topics that are part of mainstream discourse and focusing our enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations," he said. He also said they have "destroyed more trust than they've created", especially in the US. Reportedly, the move comes as Zuckerberg and other internet CEOs are working to improve relations with US President Donald Trump. Trump and his Republican allies have criticised Meta's fact-checking policy, claiming it censors right-wing viewpoints.