Meta's Community Notes: When Users Are the Crash Dummies

Next Tuesday — on 18 March, 2025 — Meta will quietly roll out "Community Notes" across its platforms, essentially copying Elon Musk's crowd-sourced moderation scheme that's working oh-so-well over at X (Editorial: it's not).

In other words, Facebook is about to unleash its latest attempt at shirking responsibility.?

Zuckerberg's empire is now handing the misinformation keys to... random users.?

It's like watching a bartender who got tired of cutting off drunk patrons decide to let the drunks themselves vote on who's had enough.

This isn't just another product launch.?

It's Meta washing its hands of content moderation while pretending to solve the problem. And they're doing it across Facebook, Instagram, AND Threads in one fell swoop.

What could possibly go wrong?

The "Crowd Will Fix It" Fantasy That Never Works

Let's be clear about what's happening here: After making billions by amplifying outrage and misinformation, Facebook is now outsourcing the cleanup to unpaid users. It's like an oil company asking volunteers to mop up its spill with paper towels.

The idea sounds almost reasonable on paper — letting users add context to misleading posts, with notes becoming visible after receiving positive ratings from people across the political spectrum. But if you've spent five minutes on Twitter/X since Elon Musk unleashed his version of this feature, you know how this story ends.

Studies show that X's Community Notes failed to address 74% of posts identified as misleading. That's not a minor oversight — that's a catastrophic failure rate. And when notes did appear, the original misleading content garnered 13 times more views than the corrections.

Facebook's version adds a small twist: requiring links in notes to supposedly add credibility. Because, you know, links on the internet are never misleading.

(Narrator voice: They frequently are.)

Meta's Coming Content Nightmare: What X Has Already Shown Us

If X's experience under Musk is any preview of coming attractions, Facebook's pivot to Community Notes should have us all reaching for the digital hazmat suits. The evidence isn't just concerning — it's damning.

Since Musk took over and implemented Community Notes as his primary moderation strategy, X has become a petri dish of toxicity. Hate speech didn't just tick up slightly — it surged by a staggering 50% and has remained elevated well into 2023. All those "freedom of speech, not freedom of reach" promises? Pure tech-bro fantasy. Independent researchers found that hateful content is now more visible than ever.

The misogyny metrics are even more disturbing. There was a 69% spike in accounts following known misogynistic channels after Musk's takeover. Each time he reinstated banned figures like Andrew Tate (you know, the guy currently facing human trafficking charges), a new wave of harassment against women flooded the platform. It turns out when you signal that abusive behavior gets a pass, abusers show up in droves. Who could have predicted?

Most alarming is what happened to child safety protections. Despite Musk's grandiose claims about making child exploitation his "priority one," investigators found child sexual abuse material remained disturbingly accessible. After gutting specialized moderation teams and abandoning key detection tools, X's claims of suspending more accounts ring hollow when the material itself continues circulating virtually unchecked.

And misinformation? Community Notes has been a spectacular disappointment. Less than 12.5% of submitted fact-checks ever see the light of day. During the 2024 elections, the vast majority of false claims spread without any correction whatsoever.

This is the system Facebook is about to adopt.

And unlike Musk, who at least had the excuse of being new to content moderation, Zuckerberg knows exactly what he's doing. He's seen the research. He's read the reports. He's choosing this path anyway, with full knowledge of the consequences.

This Isn't Facebook's First Moderation Shell Game

Remember when Facebook created an "Oversight Board" that could make binding decisions on content moderation? That seemed promising until we realized it was handling a minuscule fraction of cases while Facebook's algorithms continued pushing rage-bait to billions.

Now we have Community Notes, with Zuckerberg essentially telling us: "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas."

What's particularly galling is that Facebook knows exactly how to reduce misinformation. Internal documents have repeatedly shown that the company's own researchers identified solutions — but implementing them would have reduced "engagement" (read: advertising revenue).

Instead, we get this half-measure that will likely moderate less than 12.5% of problematic content if Twitter's experience is any indication. That's not a solution; it's a fig leaf.

The Associated Press Monopoly: When America Said "Enough" to Information Control

We've been here before. In the early 20th century, the Associated Press (AP) wielded extraordinary power as America's news gatekeeper. As a collective owned by member newspapers, the AP controlled the flow of information across the country, deciding which stories deserved coverage and which would disappear into oblivion.

By the 1940s, the AP's monopolistic practices had become so problematic that a competitor, International News Service, sued them for anti-competitive behavior. The resulting Supreme Court case, Associated Press v. United States (1945), found the AP guilty of violating antitrust laws.

The Court's ruling was unequivocal: "Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the Constitution, but freedom to combine to keep others from publishing is not."

The Justice Department followed with antitrust actions that forced the AP to make its services available to any newspaper willing to pay for them, regardless of whether existing AP members approved. This broke the stranglehold on information distribution and opened up American journalism to more diverse voices and perspectives.

The parallels to today's tech monopolies are striking. Facebook, like the old AP, controls an information distribution network that reaches billions. But unlike the AP, which was eventually regulated, Facebook continues to operate with minimal oversight while implementing cosmetic "solutions" like Community Notes.

The Citizens Who Broke the Information Monopoly

The AP's transformation didn't happen spontaneously. It required sustained pressure from independent publishers, consumer advocacy groups, and ordinary citizens demanding better.

Organizations like the American Newspaper Guild (today's NewsGuild-CWA) mobilized journalists and readers to push for media fairness. Civic groups like the League of Women Voters conducted media literacy campaigns. And crucially, smaller independent newspapers refused to be silenced, continuing to challenge the news monopoly despite significant obstacles.

Their collective action eventually forced the government's hand, leading to the landmark Supreme Court decision and subsequent regulatory changes.

Today's citizens have even more tools at their disposal. Media watchdog organizations track and expose platform manipulation. Advocacy groups push for algorithmic transparency. And everyday users can support independent journalism rather than relying on news filtered through Facebook's engagement-maximizing algorithms.

What You Can Do Before We All Drown in a Sea of Misinformation

Facebook's Community Notes isn't going to save us from misinformation any more than putting a Band-Aid on a broken dam will stop a flood.?

But that doesn't mean we're helpless.

1. Just stop using Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. I did years ago and feel much more clear-headed and worked-up after I quit Meta social media platforms.
2. Support regulatory efforts like the Digital Services Act in Europe, which forces platforms to assess and mitigate systemic risks. The U.S. needs similar legislation with actual teeth.
3. Join media literacy campaigns that teach people how to identify misinformation. Organizations like the News Literacy Project provide excellent resources.
4. Pressure Facebook directly by engaging with their quarterly transparency reports. When they tout Community Notes as a solution, demand data on its effectiveness.
5. Support independent journalism that doesn't rely on Facebook's distribution. Direct subscriptions to news outlets with strong fact-checking practices matter more than ever. Substack is doing a bang-up job of supporting independent journalism.

Use alternative platforms that prioritize information integrity over engagement metrics. Your attention is valuable — don't give it away to platforms that profit from misinformation.