DO WE REALLY SUPPORT FACT-CHECKERS?

Within the MCT community, I have been wondering how strong our support for fact-checking organizations really is.

Posts from VERA Files, Rappler Fact Check, AFP Fact Check Philippines and other fact-checking groups rarely seem to receive the attention that political opinions, angry reactions and viral accusations attract. I notice the same weak response even among academics, professionals, policy-minded readers and advocates of good governance.

I do not have the numbers to prove this. I am saying it based on the engagement I see in and around this page, and it makes me wonder what we really mean when we say we value verified information.

Supporting fact-checkers takes more than agreeing with them after they confirm something we already believe. We can follow their pages, share their findings, send them suspicious claims, cite their work and accept their corrections when the evidence goes against our politics.

They cannot check every video, quote card, altered photograph, invented headline and recycled lie that appears online. Their work can only go so far when a false post spreads across hundreds of accounts while the correction reaches the same small circle of readers.

REPORTING FALSE CONTENT RESPONSIBLY

I initially thought of asking everyone to mass-report pages that repeatedly spread disinformation. The more I looked into how Facebook handles reports, the more cautious I became about that proposal.

A report should point to an actual violation. It should never become a weapon against a page, journalist, critic or ordinary user whose politics we dislike.

Facebook itself says the number of reports does not determine whether content is removed. Its reviewers are supposed to apply the same Community Standards whether a post receives one report or thousands.

That means a mass-reporting campaign cannot turn a post allowed under Meta’s rules into a violation. It can still create noise, encourage retaliation and send legitimate work into a review system that already makes mistakes.

The better approach is to report the exact post, photograph, video or account activity involved. Choose the closest truthful reporting category, include the fact-check when the form allows more information, and keep the URL and a screenshot.

Do not report an entire page merely because one post is wrong. Report the page itself when there is a clear record of deception, impersonation, scams, coordinated abuse or repeated violations.

Once a user reports an already debunked post, Meta has to decide what to do with it. Many users lose confidence in the process at this stage.

FALSE DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN REMOVABLE

Meta does not treat every false statement as a violation of its Community Standards; it says it removes misinformation when the content is likely to contribute directly to imminent physical harm. It also removes some deceptive content connected to voting and other specific harms covered by its policies, while many other false claims remain online.

The third-party fact-checking system works differently. A fact-checker can rate a post false, partly false or altered, after which Meta may attach a warning, reduce its reach and restrict a repeat offender’s ability to advertise or earn money.

The fact-checker does not delete the post, suspend the account or ban the page. Meta makes those decisions.

This explains the message users often receive after reporting a clearly false post: Facebook reviewed it and found that it did not violate the Community Standards. Facebook is only saying it found no reason to remove the post under the rule used to review the report; the truth of the claim is a separate question that Meta does a poor job of explaining.

WHAT HAPPENED TO FACEBOOK’S FACT-CHECKING PARTNERSHIP?

Facebook introduced its third-party fact-checking program in the Philippines in April 2018 with VERA Files and Rappler. Agence France-Presse later became another Philippine partner.

Meta announced in January 2025 that it would end the program in the United States and replace it there with Community Notes. This confused many people because reports often described the change as the end of Facebook fact-checking without making clear that it applied only in the United States.

The Philippine partnership was still in place after that United States announcement. During a House hearing on April 8, 2025, Meta public policy director Rafael Frankel named VERA Files, Rappler and AFP as the company’s Philippine fact-checking partners and said the program would continue outside the United States.

Current VERA Files pages still describe the organization as part of Meta’s third-party fact-checking program. AFP’s report on its 2025 digital investigation work, published in 2026, also said the Meta contract had ended in the United States while continuing in other regions for the time being.

I found no public Meta announcement ending the partnership in the Philippines. What remains uncertain is how long Meta intends to keep it, how much support it still gives the program and whether Community Notes will eventually replace it here.

HOW DOES META REVIEW A REPORT?

Meta says its system uses automation and human reviewers. Reports may be sent to different reviewers based on language and the suspected violation, while automated systems can remove content when they are almost certain that a rule was broken or send less certain cases to a person.

The company says it decides which reports to handle first based on the possible harm, how widely the content is spreading and the likelihood that it breaks a rule. Reports are therefore not always handled in the order they arrive.

Meta has not clearly explained how it decides which ordinary reports get priority. Based on its public explanations, the reporting category, possible rule violation, harm, reach, language and need for someone familiar with the issue can all affect where a report goes and how quickly it is handled.

Meta’s public explanation still leaves users without enough information about a specific decision. When Meta says a post did not violate its rules, which rule was tested?

Did automation close the report, did a person read the full article, was the disputed claim checked, and did the reviewer understand the Philippine context?

Meta also has a problem with context. Its reviewers and automated systems can understand the words in a post and still miss the history, coded language, political timing or local damage behind them.

Meta knows this problem exists. In 2021, the company acknowledged that AI still struggled to understand content across languages, cultures and countries because the same words can have very different meanings depending on where and how they are used.

Human review does not automatically solve that problem. Meta told Amnesty International in 2024 that it had human-review capacity in Filipino and Cebuano, but it did not say how many reviewers it employed for either language.

Amnesty noted that Filipino and Cebuano represent only two of around 170 languages spoken in the country. It also reported that other major languages, including Ilocano, were not covered by Facebook content moderators assigned to review posts in those languages.

A Philippine case decided by the independent Oversight Board in November 2025 shows how the system can fail at several levels. A manipulated video used footage of a protest in Serbia, added chants of “Duterte” and made it appear that supporters of former president Rodrigo Duterte were demonstrating in the Netherlands after his arrest.

Meta’s automated system flagged the original video as possible misinformation, and similar versions had already been rated false by Philippine fact-checkers. The original still received around 100,000 views because fact-checkers could not review everything in their queue.

When another user reported a reshared version, Meta did not prioritize the report for human review. A person later reviewed the appeal and upheld the decision to leave the post untouched.

The Oversight Board said Meta should have placed a High-Risk warning on the video. It also found that Meta should have treated Duterte’s arrest as a critical political event because misleading posts were spreading during a period of heightened tension.

Failures can happen at every stage. Automated systems miss local context, crowded queues keep posts from fact-checkers, human reviewers make mistakes, and Meta’s own rules allow many false claims to remain online.

I cannot say Meta is unaware of the problem. It has studied the risks, hired reviewers, built automated systems and worked with local fact-checkers; its knowledge has still not produced the consistent and sustained response needed to match the scale of the damage.

Users usually receive a result with little useful explanation. That vague answer leaves people wondering whether Meta is ignoring disinformation or removing legitimate posts without understanding them.

I have experienced the second problem three times. Three MCT articles backed by factual sources were removed after being reported for alleged Community Standards violations, yet the notices did not identify the exact sentence, image or context that supposedly crossed the line.

I appealed. All three articles were restored.

The fact that Meta restored them tells me the first decisions were reversed after another review. It did not tell me how the errors happened, which part of each article triggered the action or what would prevent the same thing from happening again.

I have also seen already debunked misinformation remain online after many people reported it. Meta’s own rule explains why the number of reports does not force removal; it still does not explain why a known repeat offender can keep circulating false claims with no clear consequence.

META SHOULD USE FACT-CHECKERS’ WORK MORE EFFECTIVELY

Meta should take its cue from credible fact-checking organizations when deciding which pages and accounts need a deeper review. A long record of independent fact checks can reveal repeat offenders that Meta may miss when it reviews only one post at a time.

That record should make Meta look carefully at what the page has been doing. One disputed rating should never produce an automatic ban because such a rule could easily be used to silence legitimate speech.

Meta already says it can reduce the reach of accounts that repeatedly share content rated false and restrict their advertising or ability to earn money. Pages may be removed for repeated Community Standards violations, and networks engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior may also be removed.

What Meta has not told us is when these penalties begin. How many confirmed false posts bring restrictions on an entire page, how long do the penalties last, what kind of pattern leads to suspension, and when does repeated deception finally result in a ban?

Meta should publish and explain those rules in language ordinary users can understand. It should also tell the person reporting a post whether the claim was sent for fact-checking, reviewed only under the Community Standards, given less reach, left untouched or sent for further review because the account may be a repeat offender.

WHERE TO FIND CREDIBLE FACT CHECKS

For regularly published Philippine fact checks, follow VERA Files Fact Check, Rappler Fact Check, AFP Fact Check Philippines, ABS-CBN Fact Check, PressOne.PH Fact Check, MindaNews Fact Check, Philstar.com Fact Check, News5 Fact Check, the University of the Philippines’ FactRakers and Probe Productions’ Tsek/Eks.

Other Philippine groups and projects publishing fact checks or verification reports include Fact-Check PH by Assortedge, Fact Check Philippines, Interaksyon’s Rumor Cop, GMA’s Fact or Fake, Altermidya’s #FactsFirstPH reports, Bulatlat’s Reality Check, Explained PH Fact Check, the Los Banos Times Fact-Check project, FYT, DZUP and Akademiya at Bayan Kontra Disimpormasyon at Dayaan.

Readers should also follow Tsek.ph and #FactsFirstPH. Tsek.ph brought together 24 media, academic and civil-society initiatives for the 2025 elections, while #FactsFirstPH has connected news organizations with groups working in research, law, education and civil society.

The Tsek.ph list of partners is the best single directory for the wider Philippine network because projects appear, pause and reorganize over time. FactCheck.ph is VERA Files’ learning and tip-line site; it should not be confused with Fact Check Philippines or Fact-Check PH by Assortedge, which are separate groups.

These groups do not all work the same way. Some are newsrooms, some are coalitions or university projects, and others are archives from earlier fact-checking campaigns; before relying on one, check how it verifies claims, cites sources, identifies its funders and corrects errors.

For claims coming from outside the Philippines, useful sources include Reuters Fact Check, AP Fact Check, BBC Verify, Full Fact, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, Snopes and Lead Stories.

Government portals such as FACTS.gov.ph can help locate an official denial or agency position. An official government statement can still be wrong or incomplete, so check it against documents, data and independent reporting.

WHAT CAN THE MCT COMMUNITY DO?

Follow at least one credible fact-checking organization today. When you encounter a post that has already been debunked, report that exact content using the most accurate category and save the post URL, a screenshot, the published fact-check and Meta’s response.

If Meta leaves the post online, request another review when that option is offered. If Meta removes a legitimate post or article, appeal it and keep the notices that show what happened.

We can begin keeping a record of those decisions inside the MCT community. A shared record of what Meta removes, leaves online and restores may tell us more than isolated complaints ever will.

So here is my question: if we say we care about truth and good governance, are we willing to help verified information travel farther, report repeat disinformation responsibly and hold Meta accountable for the decisions it makes after we click Report?