Meta’s fact-checking partners claim they were “blindsided” by the company’s decision abandon third-party fact-checking on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in favor of a Community Notes model, and some say they are now scrambling to figure out if they can survive the hole it leaves in their funding.

“We heard the news like everyone else,” said Alan Duke, cofounder and editor in chief of the fact-checking site Lead Stories, which began working with Meta in 2019. “There was no advance notice.”

The news that Meta no longer plans to use their services was announced by a blog post by chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan on Tuesday morning and an accompanying video from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Instead, the company plans to rely on X-style Community Notes, which allow users to flag content they think is inaccurate or needs further clarification.

Meta associated with several fact-checking organizations and newsrooms around the world, 10 of which are based in the US, where the new Meta rules will be implemented first.

“We were blindsided by this,” Jesse Stiller, the managing editor of Meta fact-checking partner Check Your Fact, told WIRED. His organization started working with Meta in 2019, and it has 10 people working in the newsroom. “It was completely unexpected and out of left field for us. We didn’t know this decision was being considered until Mark dropped the video overnight.

News organizations that have partnered with Meta to tackle the spread of disinformation on the platform since 2016 are scrambling to figure out how this change will affect them.

“We have no idea what the future will look like for the future website,” Stiller said.

Duke said Lead Stories has a diverse revenue stream and most of its operations outside the US, but he admitted the decision will have an impact on them. “The most painful part of this is the loss of some very good, experienced journalists, who will no longer be paid to research the false claims found on the Meta platforms,” ​​Duke said.

For others the financial implications are even worse. An editor at a U.S.-based fact-checking organization that works with Meta, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told WIRED that Meta’s decision “will ultimately cost us.”

Meta did not respond to a request to comment on the allegations of its partners or the financial impact that its decision may have on certain organizations.

“Meta doesn’t owe the fact-checkers anything, but it knows that by pulling this partnership it’s removing a very important source of funding for the global ecosystem,” it said. Alexios Mantzarlis, who helped establish the first partnership between fact checkers and Facebook between 2015 and 2019 as director of the International Fact Checking Network.

Meta’s colleagues are also outraged by Zuckerberg’s allegation that fact-checkers have become too biased.

According to Duke, it’s disappointing to hear Mark Zuckerberg accuse third-party Meta fact-checking organizations in the US of being “very politically biased.” “Let me check the truth of that. Lead Stories adheres to the highest standards of journalism and ethics required by the International Fact-Checking Network code of principles. We examine the truth regardless of where on the political spectrum a false claim originates. “