Investing.com -- Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: NASDAQ: META ) has announced plans to begin testing its Community Notes feature across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the United States. The company anticipates that Community Notes will be less biased than the third-party fact-checking program it replaces, as it allows a wider range of people to provide context to posts.

The testing phase, set to commence on March 18th, will involve contributors from the community writing and rating notes on content across the three platforms. Approximately 200,000 potential contributors in the U.S. have registered to participate in the program across all three apps. The company will gradually admit people from the waitlist and test the writing and rating system before any notes are made public.

Community Notes will have a 500 character limit and must include a supporting link. To reduce bias, notes will only be published if contributors with diverse viewpoints broadly agree on them. It’s not a majority rules system; a note will only be published if people who usually disagree agree that it provides useful context.

Contributors must be over 18 years old, have an account older than six months in good standing, and either have a verified phone number or be enrolled in two-factor authentication. The Community Notes feature will initially be available in six languages commonly used in the United States: English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, and Portuguese, with plans to expand to other languages over time.

Initially, contributors will not be able to submit notes on advertisements but can write and submit notes on almost any other forms of content, including posts by Meta, its executives, politicians, and other public figures.

Meta is building its Community Notes feature based on an open-source algorithm, which will consider each contributor’s rating history and evaluate which contributors normally disagree. The company expects the Community Notes feature to be less biased and operate at a greater scale than the third-party fact-checking program it replaces.

Unlike fact checks, notes will not have penalties associated with them. Fact-checked posts often had their distribution across Meta’s platforms reduced, but this won’t be the case with posts that have notes applied to them. Notes will provide additional context, but they won’t impact who can see the content or how widely it can be shared.

Once Meta is satisfied with the initial testing of the Community Notes program, it plans to roll it out across the United States. No new fact check labels from third-party fact checkers will appear in the U.S. once Notes begin to appear publicly, although fact checkers are welcome to become Community Notes contributors. Meta plans to eventually roll out the Community Notes feature worldwide, but for now, the third-party fact-checking program will remain in place for other countries.

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