Anyone who cares about finding reliable, accurate information online should be deeply concerned about Meta’s announcement that it is testing its community notes program in 16 Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. The community notes program alone is simply not adequate when it comes to reducing the impact of harmful falsehoods on its platforms. The International Fact-Checking Network believes professional fact-checking programs should continue both in the region and worldwide.
Meta announced it intends to test community notes in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Meta’s own Oversight Board has expressed significant concerns with Meta’s community notes program, which now operates in the United States in place of fact-checking. Less than six months ago, the Oversight Board advised Meta not to expand community notes to countries and contexts that face specific societal challenges. Those challenges include countries that are in crisis or under protracted conflict conditions; countries going into critical election periods; places where there is language complexity; countries with a history of coordinated disinformation networks; or places where social division and disagreement drive complex political violence.
Yet Meta is testing its community notes in some countries that face precisely one or more of these circumstances. Nicaragua, for example, has abolished elections and is actively practicing arbitrary detention of political dissidents. Disinformation networks have been well documented in El Salvador and Ecuador. And Venezuela has been in an extended state of instability.
Fact-checkers welcome the opportunity to work with Meta, as well as other technology companies, to develop new ways to provide users with additional accurate information by combining community notes with professional fact-checking. Fact-checking is a form of journalism and an exercise in freedom of expression that remains a critical part of the internet.