Following Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement to end the fact-checking system on Facebook and Instagram, there has been a wave of criticism from supporters of the Digital Services Act. Without fact-checkers, hate speech, incitement, misinformation, and lies would be given free rein on social media.

What is often overlooked: Zuckerberg intends to implement Community Notes, the system from X (formerly Twitter), which Elon Musk has been continually improving since acquiring the platform and renaming it. But what are the actual advantages of Community Notes?

Advantages of Community Notes Over Fact-Checkers

Community Notes (formerly known as “Birdwatch” on Twitter/X) and traditional fact-checkers both aim to combat misinformation but differ in their approach and structure. Here are the key advantages of Community Notes over traditional fact-checkers.

Decentralization and Diversity of Perspectives

Community Notes: Contributions are made by a wide range of users from various backgrounds, worldviews, and regions. This diversity increases the likelihood that many perspectives are considered and helps prevent potential biases that could arise in a centralized fact-checking organization.
Fact-Checkers: Typically operate in smaller teams led by a specific organization, which can limit evaluations to the opinions or focuses of that organization.

Collaborative Evaluation

Community Notes: Contributions are reviewed and rated by a larger community. Only notes deemed useful by people with differing opinions are displayed. This promotes a consensus-based validation of information.
Fact-Checkers: The judgment lies with a few experts, with the general public not directly involved in the review process.

Scalability

Community Notes: Supported by a large user base, potentially allowing for much more content to be reviewed. The “wisdom of the crowd” enables quick responses to new trends and information.
Fact-Checkers: Due to the limited capacity of fact-checking organizations, they can only review a limited number of contents, which is often insufficient given the flood of online information.

Independence from Central Authorities

Community Notes: Not directly controlled by governments, corporations, or media outlets. This increases transparency and reduces distrust in centralized control over definitions of truth.
Fact-Checkers: Often funded by media companies or organizations, which can foster distrust among people who view these institutions as biased.

Empowerment of Media Literacy

Community Notes: Encourage active participation and critical thinking among users. People are motivated to research and evaluate evidence and sources themselves rather than relying on expert judgments.
Fact-Checkers: Often provide ready-made evaluations without the general public being directly involved in the process.

Speed and Flexibility

Community Notes: Can respond immediately, as users can flag misleading information and add comments in real time.
Fact-Checkers: The process is often slower, requiring thorough research and editorial approvals.

Challenges of Community Notes

It is important to note that Community Notes can also have drawbacks, such as:

Possible manipulation by organized groups (e.g., bots or targeted campaigns).
Dependence on the active participation of a representative user base.

Overall, the advantage of Community Notes lies in distributing the power of truth-finding from central institutions to the community, making the process more transparent and diverse through collaborative efforts.