2026-03-26 10:00 UTC

Oversight Board tells Meta expanding Community Notes outside of US poses 'significant' risks

Meta didn't consult its Oversight Board last year when it announced sweeping policy changes to content moderation and a rollback of third-party fact checking in the United States in favor of Community Notes.

But the company did ask the board for advice on how to expand the crowd-sourced fact checks to other countries.

Now the Oversight Board is publishing its advice to Meta.

In a 15,000-word policy advisory opinion, the group urged Meta to be cautious with an international rollout, warning that an expansion of the program could "pose significant human rights risks and contribute to tangible harms" if safeguards are not put in place.

The board, notably, was asked to weigh in on a fairly narrow set of questions, including how it should evaluate whether to withhold the feature in certain countries.

Meta "respectfully" asked the Oversight Board to avoid "general" critiques about the system, which it has said is modeled after X.

In its opinion, the Oversight Board said that Community Notes "could enhance users’ freedom of expression and improve online discourse" with enough safeguard.

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