Meta put in place a fact-checking program that empowered third-party fact checkers to mark content false, in response to critiques about misinformation.

Judge as of 2025-01-10. True: Facebook/Meta launched a third-party fact-checking program (started in December 2016) in response to public criticism about misinformation (e.g. after the 2016 US election), and under it independent fact-checkers could rate content as false or misleading, with Meta then labeling it or reducing its reach. Mostly true: the program existed and gave third-party fact-checkers these powers, but a minor detail is off (e.g. the motive had several causes, or the fact-checkers' powers were narrower than 'mark content false'). Mixed: the program existed, but the evidence shows it was not mainly a response to misinformation criticism, or fact-checkers had little real power over content. Mostly false: the program differed substantially, e.g. Meta staff, not third parties, made the ratings. False: Meta had no such program.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Meta ending fact-checking for community notes model PolitiFact · 7 January 2025

   “PolitiFact was one of the original news organizations that partnered with Facebook to launch the company's Third Party Fact-Checking program in December 2016.”

2. E2 Meta ending fact-checking for community notes model PolitiFact · 7 January 2025

   “The program's third-party fact-checkers have never had the power to remove content from Meta's platforms, a fact that Meta makes clear in its online program description:”

3. E3 Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News Facebook (about.fb.com) · 15 December 2016 Own record

   “We’ve started a program to work with third-party fact checking organizations that are signatories of Poynter’s International Fact Checking Code of Principles.”

4. E4 Hard Questions: How Is Facebook's Fact-Checking Program Working? Facebook (about.fb.com) · 14 June 2018 Own record

   “We started the third-party fact-checking program in December 2016. Now we have 25 partners in 14 countries, many with recent or upcoming elections. Our partners are independent and certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network.”

The evidence shows a third-party fact-checking program began in December 2016 with independent partners (E1, E3, E4) and that fact-checkers could not remove content (E2). No evidence item shows that fact-checkers could rate content false or that Meta then labelled it or reduced its reach, so the criteria cannot be applied.