When Meta announced last year that it was abandoning third-party fact checkers in favor of an X-style community notes system, the company was careful to note that it would only implement the changes within the United States. Now, nearly a year later, the social media company is getting ready to expand crowd-sourced fact checking to more countries, and is seeking advice from the Oversight Board on a potential rollout.
The company requested that the board “consider the factors we should consider when deciding which, if any, countries to remove from the international rollout of Community Notes”. Specifically, Meta is not asking the Oversight Board to advise on the merits of replacing traditional fact-checking organizations. Instead, the company wants guidance on how to deal with country-specific challenges and whether any changes should be made.
“We respectfully ask the Board to focus its investigation on country-level factors related to excluding countries from the international roll-out, and not on topics such as general product design or the operation of the Community Notes algorithm,” the company wrote in its request shared by the board.
So far, Meta is only experimenting with community notes on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the United States. People who want to be able to write notes still need approval, but the company allows anyone evaluate notes. However, it seems that so far the feature has not gained the same traction for the meta as it has on X. In September, the company said that only 6 percent of the more than 15,000 notes contributed were actually published.
In a statement to the Oversight Board, the group said it would consider issues such as whether crowd-sourced fact checking systems would be worthwhile in countries with “low levels of freedom of expression” or without a free press, as well as in places with “low levels of digital literacy”. It also said it was looking forward to hearing public comments from researchers who have studied various methods to combat misinformation.
Unlike a typical case of an Oversight Board, which deals with specific content moderation decisions, Meta has no obligation to implement any of the group’s recommendations. But, the company has previously opted to follow its suggestions in previous policy advisory opinions, including a decision to withdraw COVID-19 misinformation rules following the board’s recommendation.