Fact-checking at a crossroads: Fact checkers’ perspectives on Community Notes, AI integration, and design recommendations

Social media platforms are increasingly using community-based verification systems, such as Community Notes, and AI systems to flag and contextualize potentially misleading content at scale. While these approaches promise speed and broad coverage, concerns about accuracy, bias, and transparency persist. Drawing on interviews with 29 fact checkers, we find that practitioners see community-based verification and AI Note Writers as complementary tools that can support, but not replace, professional fact-checking. Our findings suggest that hybrid approaches, in which community contributors, AI tools, and expert fact checkers perform distinct but complementary roles, may offer a promising path toward scalable and trustworthy verification.