Mark Zuckerberg make the internet buzz This week when Meta CEO announced that the tech giant will no longer conduct independent fact-checking. The program, implemented in 2016, will be replaced by Meta's own version of Community Notes, a crowdsourced approach to reviewing online content employed by X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

So what exactly is Community Notes, and how does it work?

How Community Notes works

CBS News executive producer Melissa Mahtani confirmed that Meta has not released specific information about how it will empower users of Facebook, Instagram and other social platforms to monitor content.

On X, Community Notes works by leaving fact-checking to the community. Approved contributors call out content deemed false or misleading by attaching notes providing more context. Here's an example of a community note provided by X on its site:

community-notes-example-x.png
On X, approved contributors post notes to users providing additional context on any posts they consider inaccurate or misleading.

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Becoming an accepted contributor on X “doesn’t take much,” Mahtani said. Any X user who has an active phone number and has been on the platform for at least six months without any violations is eligible to become a voluntary contributor, he said. Contributors are protected by anonymity.

When a post is deemed false or misleading by an approved contributor, that person will post a note that provides additional context to users. The note appears below the original post.

Even once a note is added by an approved contributor, it is not visible to regular users on X. Before this can happen, other accepted contributors must vote on whether the note is useful. This is where “things get tricky,” Mahtani said.

Is the note helpful?

Once a note is added to a post on X, other approved contributors rate it based on its usefulness.

Mahtani explained, “Other contributors need to take a look at the sourcing, the accuracy of that note, and vote on whether it's helpful or not. If they vote that it's helpful — that's the hard part — the company says. That's an algorithm that takes a look at the ideological spectrum of all the contributors who voted, if it thinks those voters are diverse, then it's published.”

algorithm makes decisions

According to X's website, its purpose is so-called Bridging-based algorithm “The aim is to identify notes that are helpful to a broader audience from different perspectives.”

In other words, if the algorithm finds that the contributors voting on a given note represent an ideologically diverse group, the note starts appearing on the platform. But if the algorithm detects that those polled are very similar in their political views — a potential sign of bias — “the public never sees it,” Mahtani said.

Problems with goes. The speed of making a note public is also important, so that false or misleading information does not have the opportunity to spread unchallenged.


Meta says it's ending its fact-checking program and replacing it with a community-driven system

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A report in October The nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate analyzed the Community Notes feature and found that accurate notes correcting false and misleading claims about the U.S. elections were not displayed on 209 of 283 posts deemed misleading — or 74. %.

More information about how X's Community Notes works can be found at X's Community Notes page,

CBS News has a dedicated editorial team, CBS News confirmedWhich fact-checks claims, exposes misinformation, and provides important context. You can follow CBS News Confirmed Instagram And tiktok,


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