Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has cut the fees it pays to professional fact-checking organisations in India, people familiar with the talks between Meta and its partners said.
The cuts are between one-third and half of the previous payments for the next six months, which could significantly change the way misinformation is dealt with on the platforms in one of their biggest markets.
Fact-checking organisations signed up with Meta’s programme in 2016 when the world expressed concern over the spread of misinformation on social media. Since then, many fact-checking organisations have come to depend on the payments from Meta as a significant source of revenue.
For smaller organisations that only do fact-checking, the cut in revenue now raises serious doubts about their survival.
Meta, Mandates, and the War on Misinformation
According to people familiar with the talks, some of the fact-checking organisations may have to cut staff or cut back on operations in order to survive. Organisations with bigger newsrooms that have fact-checking desks may be able to take the cut in their stride, but independent organisations are more vulnerable since they do not have other sources of revenue.
A 2024 review of Community Notes on X revealed that many false claims were left unmarked because users could not come to a consensus across ideological divides. This has been criticized as allowing misleading information to proliferate unchecked in rapidly developing news stories.
Professional fact-checkers claim to fill this need. In an open letter from last year, the International Fact-Checking Network stated that research has shown that the use of trained fact-checkers to provide clear labels can decrease the belief in false claims and the likelihood of users sharing them.
The organisation also stated that the discontinuation of structured fact-checking programmes could lead to a real-world increase in harm, particularly in regions where misinformation has led to violence or political instability.
India is a complex case study. The country has a huge online presence, multiple languages, and regular election cycles. Misinformation can rapidly spread through text, images, and video on messaging and social media services. Fact-checking organisations often operate under a tight deadline to check viral claims about politics, health, and safety.
Meta’s ever-changing strategy is also happening at a time when regulators across the globe are increasingly putting pressure on tech giants to assume responsibility for the content that is shared on their platforms. This is already happening in Europe, where the company has been warned to allow its WhatsApp service to be used with rival AI chatbots.
Between Community Notes and Professionals: India’s Misinformation Crossroads
The current challenge for fact-checking groups in India is financial sustainability rather than policy. These groups have developed their teams and workflows around Meta’s initiative for the past eight years.
The larger question still remains unanswered: whether community-driven moderation can be an adequate substitute for trained fact-checkers in nations with strong political polarisation and a high amount of online content. While proponents of Community Notes believe that open participation leads to greater trust and fewer allegations of bias, opponents feel that expertise and speed are more important when misinformation is spreading rapidly.
While Meta continues to explore new approaches to moderation, the Indian experience may hold the key to how the company weighs the costs of moderation, public pressure, and the responsibility that comes with hosting information for billions of users. For now, fact-checking organisations are left with a period of uncertainty as they adapt to a reduced role from one of their most important partners.
