- Meta is taking a page straight out of X’s playbook on content moderation.
- Meta said Thursday it’ll use the open-source algorithm of X, formerly Twitter, for its new community notes model.
- Its content moderation overhaul, announced in January, includes replacing fact-checking with community notes.
Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have something new in common.
It turns out Meta is following in X’s footsteps on community notes right down to the algorithm.
The Facebook and Instagram owner said in a blog post on Thursday that it’ll use the open-source algorithm from Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, as the basis of its own rating system.
“We won’t be reinventing the wheel,” the company said. “This will allow us to build on what X has created and improve it for our own platforms over time.”
It added that it might experiment with different or adjusted algorithms as it goes.
The company says it’ll begin testing community notes on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the US on March 18.
Meta said roughly 200,000 people in the US have signed up to be contributors to the program, and the waitlist is still open. Meta will “gradually and randomly” begin letting people off of the waitlist and will test the writing and rating system before allowing any community notes to be posted publicly.
The company says community notes won’t be published unless users with a range of viewpoints agree they provide useful context. Notes will be limited to 500 characters and require a link to supporting material.
Meta in January announced it was overhauling its approach to content moderation by replacing third-party fact-checking with crowdsourced community notes, a move signaling a rightward shift for its platforms.
At the time, Zuckerberg praised Musk’s approach with community notes on X, and signaled Meta’s platforms would adopt a similar model.
“We expect Community Notes to be less biased than the third-party fact-checking program it replaces because it allows more people with more perspectives to add context to posts,” Meta’s blog post said.
Dozens of fact-checking organizations have warned the changes could lead to more misinformation spreading on the sites, which are some of the world’s most popular social media platforms.
At X, owner Musk fired 80% of the platform’s staff since buying it in late 2022, including many people working on content moderation. Previously known as Birdwatch, X’s community notes began rolling out worldwide in December 2022.
