Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, will end its third-party fact-checking program in the United States and transition to a Community Notes program similar to that used by Elon Musk's X.

The new program will abandon independent fact checkers in favour of a user-led approach that will see contributing users write and rate notes, requiring consensus among people with a range of perspectives to prevent biased ratings.

Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg said the former content management system had led to "too many mistakes and too much censorship", drawing parallels to the excessive and "political" censorship he claims is pushed by "governments and mainstream media".

"It's time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram," he said in a video address published by Meta. "The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritising speech."

The move has been met with criticism by policy makers and experts, and is broadly regarded as a bid to win favour with US president elect Donald Trump. However, it is understood that the changes will only be implemented in the US, with Australia fact checkers to remain for the foreseeable future.

Locally, a spokesperson for the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) deferred to advice from Meta that "there is no immediate plan to make changes to the third-party fact checking program in Australia".

"Meta is a signatory to the voluntary Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation, which is administered by DIGI," said the spokesperson in a statement shared with Mi3. "Under that voluntary code, Meta has committed to a range of measures in its latest transparency report including initiatives with third-party fact-checking organisations to inform its processes to combat misinformation."

The ACMA noted that it does not have a "formal regulatory role in relation to platform compliance with their commitments under the voluntary code", but that it did have an "oversight role" and would continue to monitor changes that may affect Australian users of Meta's platforms.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Australian Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland responded by doubling down on the Albanese Government's commitment to support fact-checking efforts by the ABC, SBS and AAP.

"Misinformation can be harmful to people’s health, wellbeing, and to social cohesion," said the Minister's spokesperson. "Misinformation in particular is complex to navigate and hard to recognise.

"Access to trusted information has never been more important."

The statement continued: "We are always committed to high quality and diverse public interest journalism, particularly in regional Australia... We have actively supported this through the News Media Assistance Program."

Meta has outlined a plan to phase in Community Notes in the US over the next few months. As part of this shift, the tech company is lifting a number of restrictions on topics such as immigration, gender identity, and gender that are often the subject of intense political discourse and debate. It will instead focus its automated systems on tackling illegal and high-severity policy violations, while relying more on user reports for less severe policy violations.

The overhaul will also see the teams that write Meta's content policies and review content relocated from California to Texas and other US locations.

Meta said it is also working on making account recovery more straightforward and is testing facial recognition technology. The company is utilising AI large language models (LLMs) to provide a second opinion on some content before taking enforcement actions.

In a move to reintroduce civic content into Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, Meta is adopting a more personalised approach based on user signals. The company is expanding the options people have to control how much political content they see.