Community Notes Alone Won't Beat Disinformation: Why Fact-Checkers Are Essential

When Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg infamously announced that his company would be ditching professional fact-checking in favor of X-style community notes in the US, many were wondering: Is this a good idea? The data (as so far it is available) paints a clear picture: it is not.

In a post on Threads, Meta’s chief information security officer said that 900 Community Notes became visible in the first six months of its rollout in the US, a figure that looks even less impressive when you realize that, over a similar period, Meta put fact-checking labels on around 35 million Facebook posts in the European Union alone.

Meta’s announcement is part of a broader shift in corporate priorities following the 2024 US election: Several influential platforms have unsubscribed from key fact-checking commitments under the EU Code of Conduct on Disinformation; Google has divested significantly from the information integrity ecosystem in Europe; the prevalence of misinformation is high on most platforms.

The backtracking of Big Tech coincides with unfounded attacks from the US against the information integrity community in Europe. While the US government cracks down on free speech at home, they are using freedom of speech as a pretext to try to dismantle European legislation and to delegitimize the work of fact-checkers and watchdog groups.

Europe should not be deterred. The consequences of giving up on fighting misinformation would extend far beyond politics, imposing a heavy burden on the European economy and public health. Disinformation is now recognized as a strategic threat to businesses, with the global economy losing tens of billions of dollars annually. Sectors of strategic importance, such as renewable energy, 5G or e-mobility, are frequently targeted by coordinated campaigns. Furthermore, health-related misinformation has created a massive economic drain.

That is why we need interventions against disinformation that are effective and respect freedom of speech.

Community Notes were designed to "democratize" moderation, but research shows they are largely ineffective in their current form. On X, only about 1 in 10 proposed notes ever becomes visible, and they are even less likely to appear on polarized topics where they are needed most.

One flaw lies in the "consensus-based" methodology. By requiring agreement from users who usually disagree, platforms have effectively allowed partisans to hold facts hostage. Facts do not require a consensus vote to be accurate, yet the current system suppresses valid information if it benefits one side of a partisan debate too much. Additionally, notes are often late, rarely visible, and increasingly written by AI as human contributors drop out.

Integrating fact-checking with community notes

Professional fact-checking, when properly integrated into a platform, delivers better results. But we are not calling for the end of community participation. On the contrary, the scale of the problem requires, well, scale. So both interventions—fact-checking and community notes—can coexist on the same platform. They could even be integrated.

Professional fact-checking remains the lifeblood of accuracy after all: on X, notes that link to fact-checking articles are twice as likely to generate consensus on usefulness. And as is the case with community notes, the fact-checking community has consistently argued for more context and labels instead of removals.

The EFCSN proposes seven recommendations for how to integrate professional fact-checking with community notes:

• Verification of notes: Beyond writing notes, fact-checkers can serve as a verification layer, checking the crowd’s notes to accelerate their visibility to users. This way the often time-consuming voting process could be skipped for time-sensitive issues.
• A "fast lane" for fact-checkers: Why wait for a consensus vote when the facts are clear? Certified fact-checkers could have a "fast lane" where their notes are auto-approved or prioritized for immediate visibility.
• Real-time "early warning" access: Community flags and proposed notes can serve as an early warning system for information integrity professionals, allowing them to apply their years of experience to collate and summarize evidence before a falsehood goes viral
• Technical integration and matching: Utilizing the efficiency of AI-powered algorithms, professional fact-checks or community-approved notes could be matched to user-generated claims at scale.
• Transparency on partnerships: Notes could be a great opportunity to make the partnerships between platforms and independent fact-checkers more transparent to users, linking back to, whenever possible, fact-checking videos, articles or other content.
• Avoid bias and ensure quality: Platforms should work with professional fact-checkers who are certified by, for example, the EFCSN. This demonstrates that they adhere to standards on non-partisanship and independence.
• Independence is key: Making sure that fact-checkers are fairly remunerated for the work provided while remaining editorially independent is paramount to ensure sustainable, reliable quality of the online service and information access.

The stakes of inaction

Under the systemic risk framework of the Digital Services Act (DSA), large platforms have to put in place “reasonable, proportionate and effective” measures to mitigate the systemic risks, including those related to disinformation. Complementing fact-checking with community notes can be one such measure. But it cannot be the only one.

Many platforms fail to adequately mitigate the threats disinformation poses for their users in the EU, but investigation and enforcement decisions by the European Commission still happen slowly and not with the level of transparency that would be ideal. While we understand the necessity for cases to be supported by strong evidence to guarantee chances of success in court, we also believe that there is plenty of evidence to pursue more cases.

Until the courts have had the opportunity to hear cases and rule on the merits of different arguments, there will not be legal certainty on what kind of evidence is useful and actionable to serve as proof of DSA breaches. Fact-checking organizations have been contributing some of the most convincing, sophisticated evidence of different platform systemic risk mitigation infringements. So far, the most important bottleneck is still enforcement, not a lack of evidence.

Democracy relies on a shared foundation of reliable factual information. But we are currently witnessing "the Great Retreat"—platforms are backtracking on their commitments to fight misinformation. In doing so, they impose significant economic, health, and democratic costs on users and societies.

We believe that people deserve reliable, verified information. Providing information, calling out falsehoods and explaining context empowers them to form their own opinions freely. Combining professional fact-checking with a crowdsourced approach, such as community notes to provide more information and label content as necessary, is a promising way to protect democracy and the freedoms it creates.