Social comments appear and the original "fact check" is deleted
Meta, the global social leader, recently announced a major revision: it will cancel the existing third-party "fact-checking" program and replace it with a new "Community Notes" mechanism to allow users to participate in reviewing the authenticity of posts. This decision significantly changes the original opaque model that was jointly checked by professional fact-checking organizations and Meta’s internal systems. It is similar to the approach implemented by Musk at Note "Additional explanation".
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized that the complex censorship system in the past not only compressed the space for speech, but also often caused errors in judgment; now they need to "return to the essence of the community" and re-emphasize free expression.
According to the new policy, if a post is marked as "suspicious" or "requires more information" by users, the platform will convene a user group from around the world with diverse positions to jointly decide on the post through voting and supplementary explanations. Whether the article requires warnings or additional information. A similar approach has been performed on Musk's X before - once there is content that is questionable, the community can add "community annotations" to reveal more background, data or context.
Meta admitted frankly that this move "referred to X's experience" and further combined "decentralization" and "blockchain community spirit" to return power to global users.
From strict review to decentralized Meta, re-embrace "freedom of speech"
Regarding this reform, Zuckerberg said bluntly: "The past mechanism was overly complex and error-prone. We need to return to the original intention of being simpler and closer to free expression." He added that Meta expects to remove many ambiguities or that may lead to excessive Norms for censorship, such as the diversion of political posts or restrictions on issues such as immigration or gender. In the future, the platform will focus on removing "major violations" of content, such as terrorism, child exploitation, drugs and fraud, and other parts will be handed over to community complaints or "community comments."
Source: Facebook Zuckerberg said: "The past mechanism was overly complex and error-prone. We must return to something simpler and closer to the original intention of free expression."
Since this adjustment also covers the three major platforms of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, the industry believes that the impact is wide-ranging, which means that the "speech norms" of billions of users around the world have been significantly relaxed. In the past two years, Meta has faced multiple censorship controversies. In particular, its cooperation with official agencies or third-party fact-checking units has had mixed results, triggering a large number of user complaints. Zuckerberg once said, "The data shows that our mechanisms do a poor job of withholding legitimate posts or erroneously blocking accounts, and instead become an accomplice to suppressing speech."
Going the Musk route? Revealing the concept of "blockchain-style" mass review
Observers have discovered that the timing of Meta’s launch of “Community Annotations” coincides with the “unbanning” trend after the new U.S. government took office. The Trump administration has become more friendly to technology platforms that advocate freedom of speech, which has also made social operators more likely to More flexibility in review direction. Interestingly, "community annotations" have the concept of "autonomous review by the masses", which is somewhat similar to the consensus mechanism of decentralized blockchains. It transforms the original "top-down" information control into a bottom-up one. user interaction on. This is a risky and bold attempt, both for Meta's own public opinion and the actual operation of "whether the wisdom of the crowd can effectively avoid false information."
Some people in the crypto community have commented positively on this move: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called it "a big step for transparency and fairness" on X. Others, like Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, previously pointed out that decentralization , the open collaborative operation model is in line with the core principles of the blockchain. However, some commentators questioned whether "group truth is enough to counter distortion and manipulation" and warned that people may be more affected by emotions and group bias online.
Further reading
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"Global City Hall" upgraded again? Users have mixed reactions
On the one hand, Zuckerberg admitted that he had lost the trust of some users due to excessive censorship, and he hoped to "repair relationships through community annotations and return Meta to the origin of social interaction." On the other hand, the outside world is also worried about the lack of professional fact-checking In the future, will disinformation or conspiracy theories become rampant again? Meta said it will continue to test this mechanism in the next few months and cooperate with user marking and reporting systems to evaluate the overall accuracy and efficiency.
According to Meta’s internal briefing, this feature will be implemented in the United States first and then gradually expanded to other countries. The team plans to ensure that participants have diverse backgrounds and are credible through enhanced algorithm matching and identity rating. The engineering side will also regularly check "community comments" to prevent a few malicious groups from tampering with facts.
In this regard, the market generally interprets that Meta's big move is not only a tribute to Musk's successful demonstration of "community annotation", but also highlights the increasing popularity of blockchain "consensus and decentralization" among global technology giants. If this mechanism operates smoothly in the future, it may further promote diverse community discussions and a self-purification mechanism for false information; if it eventually becomes a "hodgepodge" of ideological struggles, the risk cannot be ignored. The world is paying attention to whether this experiment, which may rewrite the ecology of online public opinion, can truly restore trust through "community autonomy."
"Copying Musk's homework?" Meta launches community annotation, Zuckerberg: Return freedom of speech to the community. This article was first published in "Crypto City"