The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) has called an emergency meeting of its members following Meta's announcement on Tuesday that it would end its third-party fact-checking partnerships in the US and replace them with a crowdsourced moderation tool similar to X's Community Notes.
In an exclusive interview with Business Insider, IFCN Director Angie Hollan confirmed that the meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, was organized in direct response to Meta's decision.
“We hold meetings like this every month, but we called this one specifically because of the recent news,“ she said.
The meeting is expected to attract between 80 and 100 participants from the IFCN fact-checking network, which includes 170 organizations worldwide. Not all attendees are Meta fact-checking partners, though many have a stake in the future of the program and its global implications.
IFCN has long played a crucial role in Meta’s fact-checking ecosystem, accrediting organizations for Meta’s third-party program, which began in 2016 following the U.S. presidential election.
IFCN certification signals that a fact-checking organization meets rigorous editorial and transparency standards. Meta’s partnerships with these certified organizations have become a cornerstone of its efforts to combat misinformation, focusing on flagging false claims, contextualizing misinformation, and limiting its spread.
Holland noted that fact-checkers are not responsible for removing posts, only for labeling misleading content and limiting its spread.
“It was never about censorship, it was about adding context to prevent the spread of false claims,“ said Holland.
Meta’s decision could have serious financial implications for fact-checking organizations, especially those that rely heavily on funding from the platform.