Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced that it will start testing Community Notes, a crowdsourced fact-checking program, on March 18. At first, it will be based on a ratings system that Elon Musk's X uses.

In January, Meta terminated its fact-checking initiative. CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that fact-checkers had turned politically biased, employing some of the same terminology that conservatives have long used to attack his platforms. However, Meta's policy change infuriated media specialists and social media researchers.

“The decision not only removes a valuable resource for users, but it also provides an air of legitimacy to a popular disinformation narrative: That fact-checking is politically biased. Fact-checkers provide a valuable service by adding important context to the viral claims that mislead and misinform millions of users on Meta," says Dan Evon, lead writer for RumorGuard, the News Literacy Project's digital tool that curates fact checks and teaches people to spot viral misinformation.

Following President Donald Trump's election to his first term, Meta launched truth checks in December 2016 in response to complaints that ‘fake news’ was proliferating on its platforms. The digital behemoth boasted for years that it was fighting misinformation by collaborating with over 100 organizations in more than 60 languages.

Though not immediately, Community Notes will eventually take the place of fact checks. Potential U.S. contributors can start registering to participate in the initiative, according to Meta, but their notes won't show up right away.

"We will start by gradually and randomly admitting people off of the waitlist and will take time to test the writing and rating system before any notes are published publicly," Meta says.

Also Read: Eyes Watching You From The Clouds

According to Meta, it has no say in what is written or rated, and the remarks won't be published unless contributors with a range of viewpoints broadly agree on them.

Additionally, postings with Community Notes won't face penalties, unlike fact checks, which restricted the dissemination of those found to contain false material, according to Meta.