Social media giant Meta on Thursday announced it would begin testing its new “Community Notes” feature across its platforms in the United States next week, as it shifts away from third-party fact-checking toward a crowd-sourced approach to content moderation.Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced the new system — popularized by the Elon Musk-owned platform X — in January as he appeared to align himself with the incoming Trump administration, including naming a Republican as the company’s head of public policy.The change of system, which Meta will start testing on Tuesday, came after years of criticism from supporters of President Donald Trump, among others, that conservative voices were being censored or stifled under the guise of fighting misinformation, a claim professional fact-checkers vehemently reject.Meta has also scaled back its diversity initiatives and relaxed content moderation rules on Facebook and Instagram, particularly regarding certain forms of hostile speech.AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking scheme.The initiative will allow users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads to write and rate contextual notes on various content.Meta said approximately 200,000 potential contributors in the United States have already signed up across the three platforms. The new approach requires contributors to be over 18 with accounts more than six months old that are in good standing.During the testing period, notes will not immediately appear on content and the company will gradually admit people from the waitlist and thoroughly test the system before public implementation.- ‘Arbiter of truth’ -Studies have shown Community Notes can help dispel some falsehoods such as vaccine misinformation, but researchers caution that it works best for topics where there is broad consensus.Research also shows that Community Notes on X often rely on the findings of professional fact-checking programs, which Meta has scrapped in the United States.”Meta has long said it doesn’t want to be an ‘arbiter of truth,’ but it has funded those arbiters for the past several years, and it’s not clear whether anyone will step up to replace it,” tech writer Casey Newton wrote in an online commentary. “If no one does, Community Notes will suffer both on X and on Meta’s platforms.”Meta’s new approach ignores research that shows Community Notes users are often spurred by “partisan motives” and tend to over-target their political opponents, according to Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech.Meta, however, emphasized that the notes will only be published when contributors with differing viewpoints agree on their helpfulness.”This isn’t majority rules,” the company said.Moreover, unlike fact-checked posts that often had reduced distribution, flagged content with Community Notes will not face distribution penalties.Notes will be limited to 500 characters, must include supporting links and will initially support six languages commonly used in the United States: English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French and Portuguese.”Our intention is ultimately to roll out this new approach to our users all over the world, but we won’t be doing that immediately,” the company said.”Until Community Notes are launched in other countries, the third party fact checking program will remain in place for them,” it added.Meta said that it would not be “reinventing the wheel” and will use X’s open-source algorithm as the basis of its system.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month warned that the rollbacks to fact-checking and moderation safeguards were “reopening the floodgates” of hate and violence online.

Canada called Thursday on the Group of Seven powers to back Ukraine against Russia’s “aggression” as US President Donald Trump’s more conciliatory approach toward Moscow split the club of wealthy democracies.Canada, the current G7 president, is gathering foreign ministers for three days of talks inside a rustic hotel in snow-dusted Charlevoix, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. Once broadly unified, the G7 — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — has been rattled since the return of Trump, who has reached out to Russia and slapped punishing trade tariffs on close allies and competitors alike.Before the full talks, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly sat down with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the highest-level US official to visit since the inauguration of Trump who has taunted the United States’ northern neighbor as the “51st state.”Canada put its maple-leaf flag next to the US Stars and Stripes in a meeting room where Joly and Rubio exchanged French-style pecks on the cheek and shook hands. They did not respond to questions and issued no statements.Joly, opening the formal session of the G7, said she hoped to find ways to “continue to support Ukraine in the face of Russia’s illegal aggression.””We all want to see just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” she said.Rubio has called for the G7 to avoid “antagonistic” language toward Russia, saying it would hinder US diplomacy that could end the war that has killed tens of thousands of people.Since Trump took over from president Joe Biden, US statements have switched from referring to Russia’s “invasion” or “aggression” against its neighbor since 2022 to speaking of the “Russia-Ukraine conflict.” Ukraine, under heavy pressure from Trump who briefly cut off aid, agreed with Rubio in talks Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia.Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday voiced general support for a ceasefire but suggested he wanted to speak to Trump about it.- Compromise emerging on statement -German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that “peace in Europe will only come through strength.””What good is a ceasefire that would then lead to even more suffering, destruction and war in Europe after two or four years?” she said on the sidelines of the G7 talks.Diplomats said the G7 statement may paper over broader differences on Ukraine by focusing on backing the ceasefire plan.If the G7 cannot put together a common statement, “it only benefits countries like China and Russia and sends a message to the Global South,” Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Toshihiro Kitamura said.A diplomat from another country, speaking on condition of anonymity, expected a statement to come together and said it was no small feat considering the level of disagreement.”Everyone is sticking to their positions, although not in a way that seeks to attack others,” he said.Just as Rubio was meeting in Quebec, Trump doubled down in his rhetoric by saying that Canada “only works as a state” of the United States.”This would be the most incredible country visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it between Canada and the US,” Trump told reporters in Washington.Baerbock sported a white suit and European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas a red dress — leading the two to say that they chose their colors to show solidarity with Canada.- Trade war -The G7 meeting came just as Trump’s sweeping 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports came into effect Wednesday, leading the European Union and Canada to unveil billions of dollars in counter-tariffs. Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said he raised concerns about the steel and aluminum tariffs in a meeting with Rubio, warning that Americans would be economically hurt.Kallas said that China — identified by Trump as the top competitor to the United States — gained from the trade war Washington was waging on its allies.”Laughing at the side is China. It’s definitely benefiting from this. So there are no winners. Eventually, the consumers end up paying more,” she told CNN from the talks.