META Changes to Community NOTES – Could be Very Useful in Combatting Scammers
Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ends US Fact-Checking, Introduces Community Notes – a Game Changer with Scammers?
Primary Category: Online Safety
Intended Audience: General Public
Author:
• SCARS Editorial Team – Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.
About This Article
Meta’s decision to end its third-party fact-checking program in the U.S. and replace it with a user-driven “Community Notes” system significantly changes how scams and misinformation are addressed on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. While this model allows the public to flag and contextualize scam posts, it removes penalties and enforcement tools that previously helped slow the spread of harmful content.
Without expert oversight or automatic content suppression, scammers could easily outpace user warnings, especially on a platform with billions of users and fast-moving fraud schemes. Community Notes depends entirely on volunteer participation, speed, and consensus—factors that make it unreliable as a primary defense against scams. For victims, this is a shift from proactive moderation to reactive crowdsourcing. It gives users a voice, but no shield.
Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ends US Fact-Checking, Introduces Community Notes – a Game Changer with Scammers?
According to META
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will officially end its fact-checking program in the United States on Monday. The decision was announced earlier this year, and the company plans to replace the fact-checking system with a new feature called ‘Community Notes’. This change means that no new fact checks will be conducted, and there will be no penalties associated with the new system. The transition to Community Notes is seen as a shift in Meta’s approach to content moderation on its platforms.
Meta’s decision to end its third-party fact-checking program in the United States and replace it with a “Community Notes” system marks a significant shift in how the company approaches content moderation on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Announced in January 2025 and set to fully take effect on Monday, April 7, 2025, this change reflects a pivot from a centralized, expert-driven model to a decentralized, user-driven one. Your specific question—whether Community Notes will allow the public to identify posts from scammers and mark them as scams—is a critical lens through which to analyze this shift. Let’s unpack what this means broadly and then zoom in on the scam angle.
What the Change Means Broadly
Meta’s old fact-checking system, launched in 2016, relied on partnerships with over 90 independent organizations (e.g., PolitiFact, FactCheck.org) to verify content in more than 60 languages, and was almost universally WRONG when it came to flagging scams and scammers.
Posts flagged as false faced penalties like reduced visibility or warning labels, but while the system had some value against false information – in their eyes, was useless against scams. The program aimed to curb misinformation—think viral hoaxes or election interference—without Meta itself being the “arbiter of truth.” But CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a January 7, 2025, video, called it “too politically biased” and a trust-killer, especially in the U.S., citing a “cultural tipping point” post-Trump’s election win. The new Community Notes model, inspired by X’s system under Elon Musk, flips this script: users, not experts, will write and rate notes to add context to posts, with no automatic penalties like demotion. Meta’s rolling it out in the U.S. first, starting with testing on March 18, 2025, and plans to refine it over the year.
This shift signals a few big-picture changes:
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- Free Speech Push: Zuckerberg’s framing—echoing his 2019 Georgetown speech—leans hard into “free expression,” even if it means “catching less bad stuff.” It’s a reaction to years of conservative backlash claiming fact-checking censored right-wing voices, amplified by Trump’s threats and Musk’s X overhaul.
- Cost and Responsibility: Ditching paid fact-checkers cuts costs and offloads labor to unpaid users. Meta’s not deciding what’s true anymore; the crowd is. This aligns with a broader tech trend of dodging accountability under Section 230’s legal shield.
- Political Timing: With Trump’s inauguration looming (January 20, 2025), Meta’s moves—like donating $1 million to his fund and elevating Republican Joel Kaplan—suggest a strategic cozying up to the incoming administration, which has railed against moderation.
Will Community Notes Let the Public Mark Scams?
Can the public use Community Notes to identify scammers and tag their posts as scams? The answer is yes, in theory, but with limits that could make it hit-or-miss in practice.
Here’s how it shakes out based on what we know:
How It Could Work
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- User-Driven Flags: Like X’s Community Notes (launched as Birdwatch in 2021), Meta’s version lets eligible users write notes on posts they think need context—say, a shady “crypto guru” promising riches. If enough users with diverse perspectives rate it “helpful,” it could appear publicly, warning, “This post matches patterns of a known scam—see link for details.”
- Scam Focus: Meta’s Joel Kaplan, in a January 7 statement, said the company will still moderate “high-severity violations” like fraud and scams via automated systems and user reports. Community Notes could complement this by letting users call out scam posts directly, especially subtler ones algorithms miss (e.g., pig butchering or fake giveaways). X users already do this—posts on April 2, 2025, show Community Notes tweaking its scoring to better handle scam-related notes.
- Public Empowerment: Without penalties like reduced reach, a scam post stays visible, but a clear note could deter victims. Imagine a fake job ad with a note: “This links to a site known for stealing personal data—reported to Meta.” It’s grassroots vigilance, not top-down censorship.
Why It Might Falter
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- Consensus Hurdle: On X, notes only go live if contributors with “different perspectives” agree—a safeguard against bias but a bottleneck for speed. A Washington Post report (January 8, 2025) found just 7.4% of X’s election-related notes in 2024 got posted, dropping to 5.7% in October. Scams, often urgent, might slip through if consensus lags.
- Volunteer Limits: X contributor “Wang” told the Post that unpaid users lack the “manpower or resources” to tackle all misinformation, let alone fast-moving scams. Meta’s billions of users dwarf X’s 600 million, amplifying this strain. A scammer could post, cash out, and vanish before a note sticks.
- No Teeth: Unlike fact-checking, Community Notes won’t throttle a post’s spread. A scam could rack up victims while users debate its note. The Center for Countering Digital Hate (October 2024) found X’s false posts often outpaced their notes by billions of views—Meta’s scale could magnify this.
- Expertise Gap: Fact-checkers brought training and rigor; users might not. A note calling out a scam could be wrong or miss nuance (e.g., legit crypto ads vs. fraud). University of Illinois research (October 2024) praised X’s notes for retracting bad tweets, but mixed studies—like the Center’s—question their reach and accuracy.
Scam-Specific Implications
Scams cost Americans billions yearly—$8.8 billion in 2022 alone (FTC)—and social media’s a hotbed (40% of 18–29-year-olds’ losses start there). Meta’s old system caught some, but critics like BankInfoSecurity (January 7) warn this pullback could “embolden financial scammers.” Community Notes might tag a phishing link or fake profile if users act fast, but without proactive moderation, it’s reactive at best. Australia’s push to hold platforms accountable for scams contrasts sharply with this U.S. laissez-faire shift—Meta’s keeping fact-checkers elsewhere for now, hinting at regional pressure.
What It Means Long-Term
- For Scam Victims: You might see more public callouts of scammers, but don’t count on consistent protection. It’s a megaphone for savvy users, not a shield. Fraud fighters will lean harder on reporting tools and external watchdogs.
- For Meta: It’s a gamble—less “censorship” backlash, lower costs, but more unchecked lies and scams could erode trust further. Zuckerberg’s “we’ll catch less bad stuff” admission (January 7) is a red flag for accountability.
- For Society: Misinformation researchers (e.g., Public Citizen, January 7) fear a “toxic flood of lies.” Scams aside, divisive conspiracies could thrive, especially with no penalties. X’s mixed results—some notes work, many don’t—suggest Meta’s betting on an unproven fix.
Bottom Line
Community Notes will let the public flag scam posts, and some might get marked effectively if the crowd’s sharp and quick. But it’s a far cry from the old system’s muscle—slower, less authoritative, and penalty-free. Scammers might dodge notes long enough to strike, especially on Meta’s massive turf. It’s a trade-off: more user power, less control. Whether that curbs scams or feeds them depends on how well Meta tunes the system—and how much its users step up. Given X’s patchy track record, it appears to be a coin toss leaning toward chaos.
It all depends on the communities that get behind this.
What do you think—does this feel like a win for scam victims or a gift to scammers?
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Important Information for New Scam Victims
- Please visit www.ScamVictimsSupport.org – a SCARS Website for New Scam Victims & Sextortion Victims
- SCARS Institute now offers a free recovery program at www.SCARSeducation.org
- Please visit www.ScamPsychology.org – to more fully understand the psychological concepts involved in scams and scam victim recovery
If you are looking for local trauma counselors please visit counseling.AgainstScams.org or join SCARS for our counseling/therapy benefit: membership.AgainstScams.org
If you need to speak with someone now, you can dial 988 or find phone numbers for crisis hotlines all around the world here: www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
A Question of Trust
At the SCARS Institute, we invite you to do your own research on the topics we speak about and publish, Our team investigates the subject being discussed, especially when it comes to understanding the scam victims-survivors experience. You can do Google searches but in many cases, you will have to wade through scientific papers and studies. However, remember that biases and perspectives matter and influence the outcome. Regardless, we encourage you to explore these topics as thoroughly as you can for your own awareness.
Statement About Victim Blaming
Some of our articles discuss various aspects of victims. This is both about better understanding victims (the science of victimology) and their behaviors and psychology. This helps us to educate victims/survivors about why these crimes happened and to not blame themselves, better develop recovery programs, and to help victims avoid scams in the future. At times this may sound like blaming the victim, but it does not blame scam victims, we are simply explaining the hows and whys of the experience victims have.
These articles, about the Psychology of Scams or Victim Psychology – meaning that all humans have psychological or cognitive characteristics in common that can either be exploited or work against us – help us all to understand the unique challenges victims face before, during, and after scams, fraud, or cybercrimes. These sometimes talk about some of the vulnerabilities the scammers exploit. Victims rarely have control of them or are even aware of them, until something like a scam happens and then they can learn how their mind works and how to overcome these mechanisms.
Articles like these help victims and others understand these processes and how to help prevent them from being exploited again or to help them recover more easily by understanding their post-scam behaviors. Learn more about the Psychology of Scams at www.ScamPsychology.org
SCARS Resources:
- Getting Started: ScamVictimsSupport.org
- FREE enrollment in the SCARS Institute training programs for scam victims SCARSeducation.org
- For New Victims of Relationship Scams newvictim.AgainstScams.org
- Subscribe to SCARS Newsletter newsletter.againstscams.org
- Sign up for SCARS professional support & recovery groups, visit support.AgainstScams.org
- Find competent trauma counselors or therapists, visit counseling.AgainstScams.org
- Become a SCARS Member and get free counseling benefits, visit membership.AgainstScams.org
- Report each and every crime, learn how to at reporting.AgainstScams.org
- Learn more about Scams & Scammers at RomanceScamsNOW.com and ScamsNOW.com
- Learn more about the Psychology of Scams and Scam Victims: ScamPsychology.org
- Self-Help Books for Scam Victims are at shop.AgainstScams.org
- Worldwide Crisis Hotlines: International Suicide Hotlines – OpenCounseling : OpenCounseling
- Campaign To End Scam Victim Blaming – 2024 (scamsnow.com)
Psychology Disclaimer:
All articles about psychology and the human brain on this website are for information & education only
The information provided in this and other SCARS articles are intended for educational and self-help purposes only and should not be construed as a substitute for professional therapy or counseling.
Note about Mindfulness: Mindfulness practices have the potential to create psychological distress for some individuals. Please consult a mental health professional or experienced meditation instructor for guidance should you encounter difficulties.
While any self-help techniques outlined herein may be beneficial for scam victims seeking to recover from their experience and move towards recovery, it is important to consult with a qualified mental health professional before initiating any course of action. Each individual’s experience and needs are unique, and what works for one person may not be suitable for another.
Additionally, any approach may not be appropriate for individuals with certain pre-existing mental health conditions or trauma histories. It is advisable to seek guidance from a licensed therapist or counselor who can provide personalized support, guidance, and treatment tailored to your specific needs.
If you are experiencing significant distress or emotional difficulties related to a scam or other traumatic event, please consult your doctor or mental health provider for appropriate care and support.
Also read our SCARS Institute Statement about Professional Care for Scam Victims – click here
If you are in crisis, feeling desperate, or in despair please call 988 or your local crisis hotline.
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