March 13 (Reuters) - Meta will begin testing

"Community Notes" in the U.S. from March 18, using a technology

developed by Elon Musk-owned X, two months after the Facebook

parent decided to scrap its fact-checking program amid pressure

from conservatives.

As part of the move, Meta will allow contributors to write

and rate notes on content across Facebook, Instagram and

Threads, it said on Thursday.

The switch to Community Notes marks Meta's biggest overhaul

of its approach to managing content on its services in recent

memory and comes as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been signaling a

desire to mend fences with the Trump administration.

The company will use X's open-source algorithm as the basis

of its rating system, it said. The contributors will have to

include a link to support their notes.

Around 200,000 potential contributors in the U.S. have

signed up so far across all the three apps, Meta said.

The Community Notes feature will have a limit of 500

characters, with an initial availability in six languages -

English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French and Portuguese.

"We expect Community Notes to be less biased than the

third-party fact-checking program it replaces," Meta said.

The fact-checking program, launched in 2016, is used to

address dubious claims posted on Meta's social media platforms.

No new fact-check labels from third-party fact-checkers will

appear in the U.S. once the Community Notes begin to appear

publicly, the company said.

Meta works with nearly 100 certified, third-party

fact-checking organizations in more than 60 languages around the

world, according to its website.