Meta Ends Third-Party Fact-Checking

Earlier this week Meta announced they are ending their current fact-checking program in favour of a “Community Notes” system. This is similar to what X/Twitter began using in earnest in 2023, where verified users are permitted to provide additional context to a post (including ads).

What are Community Notes? On X/Twitter, they allow anyone to request that a small group of users, called “Community Notes Contributors”, add a clarifying Community Note to a post. Contributors are accounts created within the last six months, have a verified phone number and no recent violations. They can add a new Note, or they can agree or disagree with other Community Notes. A Community Note might dispute a post by providing a reputable source, verify a claim, share a counterargument, or any number of other things.

What does this mean for charities, and fundraisers using Meta?

Based on what we’ve seen on X, unfortunately we can reasonably expect to see more hateful and harmful content being shared in our Meta feeds, groups, and comment sections. It’s always been there, but expect to see more of it on Facebook, Instagram, or Threads due to the elimination of Meta’s third-party fact-checking system. While Meta’s now-defunct policies and moderations systems were far from perfect—as you know, if you’ve ever reported a comment or account and received an opaque “this comment does not violate our community standards” response—but adding Community Notes ensures no offensive comments will likely ever be removed, simply refuted where applicable.

If this change by Meta is the last straw for your organization, or crosses a hard line signaling that it’s time to leave Facebook, Instagram, and/or Threads, then you absolutely should.

One case for staying is that most of your active followers on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are still going to be there, and will still want to hear from you. If you’re staying, but only reluctantly and temporarily, it’s time to invest more resources in building your email list and establishing a presence and following on other platforms.

Maybe you stay, but you don’t spend your advertising dollars there. There are lots of other considerations and options for investing those budgets, such as email lead generation, expanding your Search advertising spend in Google or Bing, or even delving into platforms like Spotify, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, LinkedIn or Snapchat.

We’ll leave you with one final thought: when we use any platform or product, we are implicitly supporting it. That’s true whether we pay for the service with our money, our time, or our data. This applies to social media, but also to your internet provider, your phone manufacturer, your grocery store, your web browser, your shampoo, and the countless other things we interact with in any given day. We all make decisions and compromises, with varying levels of information. In the case of Meta’s moderation decisions, we have plenty of history and data to work with and make an informed decision that hopefully strikes a balance between value alignment and maximizing revenue for your cause.