AMIDST increasing efforts by fact-checking organizations globally to empower the public with information resilience skills, hoaxes, particularly those of celebrity death, continue to spread on Meta’s Facebook.
The FactCheckHub investigates some accounts identified for spreading such hoaxes on the social media platform and examines how replacing the third-party fact-checking programme with community notes could further exacerbate this disinformation practice.
In January 2025, Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp announced the termination of its third-party fact-checking programme in the United States, shifting instead to a “Community Notes” system.
By early February 2025, Joel Kaplan, Mark Zuckerberg’s second in command at Meta, said that community notes will launch “elsewhere” in 2026, including the EU.
This policy change aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump‘s executive order aimed at “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship,” which restricts federal officials from actions that could tread upon free speech rights.
While these developments are positioned as efforts to improve freedom of expression, they raise concerns about the potential proliferation of disinformation campaigns, particularly celebrity death hoaxes on social media.
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