Last week, Meta decided to replace its professional fact-checking program with an X-style “community note,” and it appears a version of this feature is already being tested on Threads. Alessandro Paluzzi, a developer who frequently posts leaks about Meta apps, shared three screenshots showing an early look at how community notes will appear in threads.
Paluzzi’s image shows a new “Write a Community Note” option in the menu in the corner of a threaded post. If you select this, you will be able to post a note anonymously, and if it is rated as helpful, it will appear below the post. The whole setup is similar to how X uses Community Notes, which started as a feature on Twitter called “Birdwatch” before Elon Musk bought the company and renamed it.
Alessandro Paluzzi
Engadget has reached out to Meta for information about the new threads feature and will update this post when we learn more.
Community notes are just one way threads will change under Meta’s new moderation approach. The app previously opposed sharing or promoting “political” content, but will now suggest political posts as well. In a short video shared to Threads today, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram and Threads, demonstrated how to adjust the amount of political content that appears in your feed. Meta gives users three options to choose from. “Show Less” which tries to eliminate political content, “Standards” which suggests some political content, and “More” which treats political content like everything else on the app. “is.
It’s not clear whether switching community notes or political content addresses the actual issues users have with the threads, or if they make anyone happy. But they fit perfectly into the “free speech warrior” image that Mehta is trying to project.
