Mixed-methods analysis reveals partisan flagging of politically polarized links on Facebook, indicating user reports reflect ideological disagreement rather than factual inaccuracy.
In January 2025 Meta announced the discontinuation of professional fact-checking on Facebook in the US, replacing fact-checkers with a Community Notes system, while simultaneously placing larger emphasis on user-reports for moderation. As earlier research has shown how user-reporting systems can be used strategically to silence opposing political views and minority voices, this raises new questions about how content on Facebook will change as a result of the decision. With a focus specifically on links rather than posts, this article speaks to the ongoing debate on user-driven moderation and Facebook’s 2025 policy change from a distinctive angle. Applying a mixed methods design, the article investigates links that have been reported as “False News” by users, providing a unique insight into an often opaque aspect of platform moderation. To guide the analysis, the article focuses on two critical cases: The 2018 election in Brazil, and links from the BBC.com domain. Results show that users generally report URLs with information about polarized political topics, indicating that users are not necessarily reporting content they think is false, but rather content they disagree with.
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Anton Elias Holt (2026) studied this question.
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