Community Notes: A New Way to Add Context to Posts

People can sign up (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) for the opportunity to be a contributor to this feature.

People can sign up to be a Community Notes contributor if they are based in the United States, over 18 years old, have an account that’s more than 6 months old and in good standing, and have a verified phone number or have set up two-factor authentication. To be in good standing, an account must not have violated our policies meant to prevent the most severe harms — such as terrorism, child sexual exploitation, and fraud and scams — and they also have not repeatedly violated our other policies.

We want contributors to be comfortable writing notes, and for notes to be rated based on the content and their helpfulness, not on who wrote them. So to start, notes won’t have author names attached to them. In the future, we may enable contributors to have a profile with a record of their previous contributions and even a unique display name. This will allow the contributor community to see more about how other contributors write and rate, and give them more information about who is providing that context.

Contributors may select a public post by clicking on the “three dot” menu and choosing “write community note.” Most public content is eligible, including content posted by politicians, Meta or Meta executives. To start, some types of content may not be supported, such as ads, Stories and Reels. Also, Community Notes cannot be added to content with limited audiences such as private posts, messages, Events, Dating, and Marketplace content.

Each community note has a limit of 500 characters and should include background information, an insight or other helpful context that is relevant to the post. Each note must include a link to a source that supports the note. All submitted notes must follow Meta’s Community Standards.

Once a contributor submits their community note, it will be available for other contributors to rate whether or not the note is helpful. A submitted note won’t appear on the post until enough other contributors agree that it’s helpful. To start, notes cannot be edited after they are submitted. However, contributors may delete their own notes, even if published, in which case no one will be able to see or rate it anymore.

Contributors have access to a Feed of notes that still need ratings prior to being published, which they can access in their Facebook, Instagram and Threads settings (see Settings/Community Notes/Rate Notes within each app).

When rating a community note, contributors must select whether they find it to be “helpful” or “not helpful”, which will help determine whether the note gets published. Contributors have the option of identifying which factors contributed to their decision, such as whether the note is relevant to the post, easy to understand, and uses neutral or unbiased language, among others. Currently, contributor ratings cannot be changed or removed.

Community Notes identifies when there is agreement that a note is helpful among contributors that normally disagree with each other. This system only takes into account each contributor’s rating history. We think this approach helps ensure that notes reflect a range of perspectives and reduces the risk of bias. Community Notes contributors decide what notes get written and how they are rated — not Meta.

A community note appears as a label added to the bottom of a Facebook, Instagram or Threads post, and reshares of those posts. The label does not impact people’s ability to see the original post. Post authors will receive a notification when a note has been published to their post, but will not be able to remove the note. When a note appears on a post, it won’t affect who can see that content or how widely it can be shared.

Please visit our Community Notes site for more information about the feature and how to become a contributor. We intend to be transparent about how Community Notes is working and how different viewpoints inform the notes displayed in our apps. Transparency is important to us and we are working on how we can best share this information with input from the broader community.

We have protections against abuse and bias built into the Community Notes rating system. Publishing a community note does not rely on majority rule: people with a range of perspectives and who may normally disagree, based on how they’ve rated in the past, will have to agree that a note is helpful in order for that note to be published. For example, if two contributors who usually disagree about whether a note is helpful, agree that a note is helpful then that note is more likely to be published. All submitted community notes also must still follow our Community Standards, which don’t allow for things like doxxing or bullying and harassment. Meta will remove notes that do not follow our policies.

Any user with an account can sign up to be a contributor for Community Notes as long as they meet our eligibility criteria. Pages on Facebook will not be eligible at first, but professional accounts on Instagram and Threads will be.

As we do with most new product rollouts, we’ll initially be focusing on organic content. That means right now advertisements are not eligible to have a community note added to them.

At launch, ads will not appear adjacent to content with Community Notes. We will continue to evaluate our approach to Community Notes as we test and learn, and we are committed to giving advertisers transparency and control over their brand safety and suitability.

Yes, politicians’ content is eligible for the Community Notes feature. Similar to how we’re approaching Community Notes overall, we are going to take time to publish these notes to ensure we’re confident the writing and rating system and the algorithm are working correctly.

No, Meta’s platforms are built to be places where people can express themselves freely. Community Notes won’t have penalties associated with them, and when a community note appears on a post, it won’t affect who can see that post or how widely the post can be shared.

To start, Community Notes will be available in six languages most commonly used on our platforms in the United States including: English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, Portuguese.

To begin with, Community Notes is open to contributors based in the U.S. based on our existing systems that determine where a user is based. Since we’re rolling the feature out in the U.S. at first, content created by people outside of the U.S. will not be eligible for notes and notes will only be visible in the U.S. You can read more about how Meta approaches user location here.

We are ending our third party fact checking program in the United States and phasing in a Community Notes system. We will continue to evaluate our approach before expansion to other countries. There are no changes to other countries at this time. Click to see more about our third party fact checking program and our approach to misinformation.

No. We continue to have Community Standards, which outline what is and isn't allowed on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads. We continue to enforce our Community Standards, and our review teams and machine learning technology detect, review and take action on content around the world 24/7 to enforce our policies. Within our Community Standards we have a Misinformation policy. We remove misinformation where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm. We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes.