What An X-Styled Community Notes Would Look Like in Instagram

Earlier this month, Meta stated that its fact-checking program will be discontinued in favour of community notes. 

The implementation of Community Notes on Instagram is rumoured to be in the works. A new option to add a community message to published postings is being added by the Meta-owned site, according to a tipster. Weeks after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared the termination of the current fact-checking program due to censorship errors and strict content policies, the leaked material was released. Although the parent business has disclosed that Community Notes would be integrated into all of its social media channels, it has not yet specified when this will happen.

Instagram’s Community Notes feature is still in development and not yet accessible to any users, according to a Threads post by developer Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a). On Threads, the functionality is supposedly at an advanced stage, while Community Notes is purportedly already undergoing testing. Notably, Zuckerberg stated that the US will be the first country to make the function available, with the other countries to follow, just after CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a significant shift from fact-checking to community feedback.

The tipster posted a screenshot showing that touching on the three vertical dots next to each Instagram post will activate the function. The “Write community note” option was positioned above the Report icon. How users will be chosen for Community remarks and how written remarks will be graded are still unknown.

According to Paluzzi’s screenshots, which were most likely obtained from a test version of the functionality, tapping or clicking on the three dot menu in a Threads or Instagram post seems to bring up the community note option.

The message is anonymous, according to Paluzzi, and if other users find it useful, it may be included on the post.

During the feature’s announcement, Zuckerberg said that “fact-checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created.”

According to Meta, Community Notes will enable people with different viewpoints the opportunity to comment on inaccurate information and offer more context. If the community thinks the background information or opinion-based insights written by eligible users beneficial, they will be published under the post.

In a series of postings on Thread, Zuckerberg provided an explanation for the decision to discontinue the fact-checking initiative. “We need to return to our foundations of free speech and providing people with a voice on our platforms,” he stated. He further stated that limits on subjects like gender, immigration, and other subjects that “are out of touch with mainstream discourse” will be lifted, and the content regulations will be made simpler.

X (previously known as Twitter) initially launched the Community Notes function in 2021, but when Elon Musk took over the firm, it was enhanced and made more well recognized. The function has drawn criticism from a number of internet users since it transfers authority from independent organizations that seek the objective truth to a tiny, randomly chosen group.

The action is reminiscent of a similar shift made by Elon Musk’s X, which similarly uses community remarks to crowdsource fact-checking. This didn’t really work, either, since the platform’s disinformation rate rose rather than fell.