How will Meta’s decision to cut ties with professional fact-checkers affect the quality of information on Facebook, Instagram and Threads? X’s transformation under Elon Musk’s ownership offers a cautionary tale.

Twitter, now X, launched a user-driven fact-checking approach before Musk’s $44 billion acquisition, but the social network switched its focus entirely to that more hands-off method of addressing misinformation after he took control.

Meta said it would implement a similar “community notes” program in its surprise Jan. 7 announcement that it would end its eight-year partnership with third-party fact-checkers. The move could pave the way for unchecked misinformation to spread rapidly, undermining public trust in its platforms, Angie Drobnic Holan, the director of the International Fact-Checking Network, warned in the latest episode of “The Poynter Report Podcast.”

While the user-driven concept may seem democratic, Holan said its execution has been flawed.

“One of the things about community notes is that it depends on people of varying political views having agreement on the usefulness of the notes,” she said. “In a highly polarized time, that agreement doesn’t necessarily happen.”

That polarization is an Achilles heel for user-driven fact-checking. X’s system has demonstrated that false claims that hold strong ideological appeal can evade corrections simply because enough users refuse to acknowledge their falsehood.

“A lot of claims that are demonstrably false don’t end up getting tagged with notes,” Holan said. “And if Meta follows this path without strong standards of evidence, misinformation will only flourish.”

The IFCN, part of Poynter, served as the accrediting body for the independent fact-checking organizations involved in Meta’s third-party fact-checking program.

Holan hearkened back to World War I, an “instructive historical example” of a similar era of propaganda and falsehoods. That environment led journalist and political thinker Walter Lippmann to argue — in his 1922 book “Public Opinion” — that democracy struggles when people base their decisions on distorted or misleading information. “Public Opinion” is widely considered foundational for modern journalism, particularly in shaping ideas about objectivity, the role of the press in democracy and the challenges of misinformation.

The challenge today, Holan said, is that misinformation spreads faster than ever before.

“You can dream up a false claim, and if it has emotional relevance, it’s going to spread like wildfire,” she said. “Social media companies should be looking for ways to elevate accurate information and downgrade the virality of falsehoods.”

Without professional oversight, Holan doubts that will happen.

“If the company has no intent to promote accurate information, then community notes is just window dressing,” she said. “That intent — or lack thereof — could determine whether Meta’s platforms follow X into an era of diminished credibility.”

Holan, a long-time staffer of Poynter’s PolitiFact, has spent years in the trenches of fact-checking and understands the uphill battle against misinformation. Elsewhere in the episode, she addressed what drew her to the profession, her feelings about President Donald Trump’s antipathy toward journalists and the growing challenges that generative artificial intelligence imposes on the industry. She ended the conversation with a pep talk for journalists and fact-checkers battling weariness.

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Catch up on season 1

• Episode 7: Media veteran Elliott Wiser dramatically reimagines local TV news to ensure its survival
• Episode 6: Associated Press media writer David Bauder details how Trump’s relationship with the press may affect his attacks on it
• Episode 5: Poynter ethics chair Kelly McBride and managing editor Ren LaForme grade the press’s election coverage and forecast a bumpy road ahead
• Episode 4: PolitiFact editor-in-chief Katie Sanders predicts a long road ahead for election fact-checking
• Episode 3: NBC News and MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki on the state of polling and America’s election systems
• Episode 2: Poynter president Neil Brown on a new report that highlights some bright spots in the business of media
• Episode 1: NPR TV critic Eric Deggans on what the media gets right and wrong about Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

Credits:

The Poynter Report Podcast is produced by the Department of Journalism and Digital Communication at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg

• Host: Tom Jones
• Executive Producers: Elliott Wiser and Ren LaForme
• Producers: Rhiannon Mcisaac, Noah Chase and Tom Jones
• Director: Christopher Campbell
• Special thank you: Neil Brown and Dr. Mark Walters